Corps convenes in Bossier City to reshape organization, improve performance

A special session of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers' Mississippi Valley Division Senior Leaders Conference convened in November in Bossier City.

Entitled "Partnerships for Effective Watershed Management," the conference was aimed at reshaping the organization to enhance performance. The meeting was held at the Holiday Inn Bossier.

Key area and regional stakeholder groups, such as the Red River Valley Association and Red River Waterway Commission, joined flood control, environmental and navigation leaders on a panel to discuss improving cooperation in managing national water resources efforts.

Also on the panel were Ken Babcock, director of operations for Ducks Unlimited, and George Grugett, executive vice president of the Mississippi Valley Flood Control Association.

The MVD Senior Leaders Conference brings Corps district engineers and leaders from the MVD headquarters in Vicksburg, as well as New Orleans, Vicksburg, Memphis, St. Louis, Rock Island and St. Paul districts, to discuss Corps regional organization direction, strategic planning, performance improvement issues and response to the Global War on Terrorism.

DSC supplies dredge to resolve neighborhood dilemma

Lake Wildwood, a prestigious private homeowners association in north central Illinois, invested in a new 8-in. Moray swinging ladder dredge manufactured by Dredging Supply Co. of Reserve.

The Moray Class dredge was delivered in mid-summer 2003 and immediately improved circumstances for both the association and the lake's boaters and swimmers.

DSC engineers performed a comprehensive sediment survey using a computer generated silt program for the various size swinging ladder dredges (using no cables). An 8-in. discharge swinging ladder dredge could outperform the existing auger dredge by a factor of 1.75 times.

Not only was this performance improvement impressive to the Association, the lack of cables resulted in a significant liability reduction for the board of directors.

"One of the major problems with the auger dredge was that the unit operated on a long cable, sometimes up to 1,000 ft., which is difficult to manage," said Eric Seagren , DSC's sales representative for the MidWest. "The cable was dangerous for boaters and was a liability to the association. This became even more apparent when the dredge was moved in front of the swimming beach and the cables were in close proximity to swimmers."

"Also, the cable had to be moved frequently to reposition the dredge and this process eliminated a considerable amount of useful dredging time."

Lake Wildwood, located in Varna, Ill., was built in the late 1960's as a lake recreation complex for people living in the Chicago and north-central Illinois areas. The lake is man-made and covers over 220 acres and is filled by water runoff from the upland agricultural area.