NEWS
By Mary Gail Hare | January 14, 2009
The Army Corps of Engineers said it will not issue a permit for a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal at Sparrows Point and a pipeline through Maryland to Pennsylvania until the project's developer has complied with federal wildlife regulations, prepared mitigation plans for wetlands that might be disturbed during construction and met other requests for information. The Corps is the second agency this month to question plans by Virginia-based AES Corp. to build the terminal and lay 88 miles of pipe to transport the gas. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to delay its vote on the project, scheduled for tomorrow, until concerns about habitats for the bog turtle and Indiana bat can be addressed.
NEWS
By MATTHEW DOLAN | January 19, 2008
A federal judge sentenced a Prince George's County man yesterday to serve two years in prison for filing more than $300,000 worth of false overtime and expense claims with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis sentenced Myron Price, 45, of Accokeek to two years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for making false claims for overtime and travel expenses in connection with his work as a physical scientist for the Corps of Engineers. The judge also ordered that Price pay restitution of $379,436.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service | October 11, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send Marines instead to Afghanistan to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials. The Marine Corps commandant's idea would effectively leave the Iraq war in the hands of the Army while giving the Marines a prominent new role in Afghanistan, under overall NATO command. The suggestion was raised in a session last week convened by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and regional war-fighting commanders.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service | August 17, 2007
NEW ORLEANS -- Six inches. After two years and more than a billion dollars spent by the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild New Orleans' hurricane protection system, that is how much the water level is likely to be reduced if a big 1-in-100 flood hits Leah Pratcher's house in the Gentilly neighborhood. Looking over the maps that showed other possible water levels around the city, Pratcher - who had 4 feet of water in her house after Hurricane Katrina - grew furious. By comparison, the wealthier neighborhood to the west, Lakeview, had its flooding risk reduced by nearly 5 1/2 feet.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service. | April 22, 2007
A U.S. military investigation has found that the Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq engaged in "willful negligence" in failing to investigate a November 2005 attack by Marines that killed 24 unarmed Iraqis, including several women and children, lawyers involved in the case said. The report, completed last summer but never made public, also found that a Marine Corps general and colonel in Iraq learned of the killings within hours of the incident, on Nov. 19, 2005, in the town of Haditha, but did not investigate.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service | March 4, 2007
BURKESVILLE, Ky. --Below the Wolf Creek Dam, which holds back the biggest manmade lake east of the Mississippi, residents joke that they are not worried about a breach but sleep in life jackets, just in case. Above the dam, they jest that since the Army Corps of Engineers labeled the structure "high risk" in January and lowered the water in Lake Cumberland to 40 feet below its summer level, residents now have some of the best "mud front" property in the country. A nervous sense of humor has taken hold in this area, famed for its trout fishing and million-dollar houseboats, as worries grow about the dam, a mile-long concrete and earthen behemoth that is leaking and showing signs of age. "That's a lot of water," said Keith Riddle, the mayor and barber here, about the trillion gallons of water 10 miles upstream sitting behind the dam, enough to cover the state of Kentucky to a depth of 3 inches.
NEWS
By NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE | May 22, 2006
NEW ORLEANS, La. -- Most of the major breaches in the New Orleans levee system during Hurricane Katrina were caused by flaws in design, construction and maintenance - and parts of the system might still be dangerous even after the current round of repairs by the Army Corps of Engineers, according to a long-awaited independent report to be published today. "People didn't die because the storm was bigger than the system could handle, and people didn't die because the levees were overtopped," said Raymond B. Seed, a professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and the chief author of the report, in a briefing for reporters here.
NEWS
By BRADLEY OLSON | March 25, 2006
When it came time for Jake Dove, a senior at the U.S. Naval Academy, to decide how he would fulfill his required military duty after graduation, there was no question about it: Marine Corps all the way. "In my eyes it's a perfect community," said Dove, an Annapolis High School graduate. "The idea of being a platoon leader in charge of guys that have done two, three tours in Iraq already, when I haven't been over there - that's an awesome responsibility. I'm eager to take it on." Despite a war that has entered its fourth year with mounting casualties and waning public support, more and more midshipmen at the Annapolis military college are volunteering for the Marines when asked to choose how they will fulfill the five-year commitment required of all academy graduates.
NEWS
By NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE | March 11, 2006
NEW ORLEANS -- One of the city's major levees failed during Hurricane Katrina because of a combination of factors that had not been anticipated by the Army Corps of Engineers when it planned the city's flood protection, according to a new report that the corps released yesterday. The report, based on the corps' own investigation of the levee failures, described a previously unknown set of circumstances during the storm: The floodwaters rising in the 17th Street canal sliced through the protective levee like a knife through a cake, sharply reducing the levee system's ability to resist the water's push.
NEWS
By BRADLEY OLSON | January 13, 2006
When Lance Cpl. Edward Voumard, 20, signs off after his shift early Sunday morning guarding an entrance to the U.S. Naval Academy, he will be one of a handful of Marines who close the book on a 155-year tradition. Voumard, who has been stationed at the academy since completing initial training after enlistment, said he would miss Annapolis very much. As for the shift: "It's just another day," he said yesterday. Since just a few years after the Naval Academy's founding in 1845, Marines have guarded the military college and performed ceremonial duties.