The Norfolk District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $23.7 million contract to Miami-based business Continental Heavy Civil Corp. for beach renourishment at the NASA Wallops Island Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
The project includes construction of breakwaters and placing 1.3 million cubic yards of sand along a four-mile stretch of the facility’s waterfront.
The sand will be gathered from a borrow site located on the northern section of the Wallops Island Flight Facility.
“We are proud to be handling the oversight for this important project, which helps to reduce risk to one of the nation’s gateways to space,” said Julio Altuna, Norfolk District project manager.
“This particular project is of great importance to the district as it is the first time we have renourished a beach using the backpassing method (the use of trucks to haul the sand), giving us more flexibility for future projects.”
After studying the movement of sand along Wallops Island, engineers discovered it was accumulating along the northern side of the island. They decided to forego dredging the material from the ocean floor, and use a method that excavates the sand from the northern portion of the island, and truck it back to the southern part of the island.
This method keeps the inlet open, protects the infrastructure and allows a wider array of contractors to bid on the project, said USACE.