GALVESTON, Texas - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, began work on the $13 million jetty repair project in Galveston today.
Jetties, also known as stone breakwaters, minimize wave action along the shoreline and prevent sediment from filling the entrances to ship channels along the Texas coast, reducing dredging maintenance cycles.
“We are surveying the area now and will start moving rock in the next week to repair storm damage to the heads of both the north and south jetties, as well as repair and replace stones that were moved and damaged as a result of Hurricane Ike,” said Alicia Rea, a project operations manager with USACE Galveston.
According to Rea, the Galveston jetties assist the Corps in carrying out one of its primary missions of keeping waterways open for navigation by minimizing sediment deposition and protecting the navigational channel.
USACE Galveston District was established in 1880 as the first engineer district in Texas to oversee river and harbor improvements. The district is directly responsible for maintaining more than 1,000 miles of channel, including 270 miles of deep draft and 750 miles of shallow draft as well as the Colorado River Locks and Brazos River Floodgates.
Work on the Galveston jetties will be followed by work in Freeport and Brownsville.
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