"Being honored with the COPRI Project Excellence Award is truly a humbling experience. It is a testament to the award winning work that our firm does, and the years of commitment to the field of coastal engineering", comments Douglas Gaffney, P.E. who serves as one of the firm's Regional Directors and was the Senior Project Manager on this award winning project.
OCC's solution to the dramatic beach loss at Eustatia was to build 9 shore perpendicular, sand filled geotextile groins in the area of beach with the highest erosion. The groin field was tapered with the lengths ranging from 45 feet to 120 feet, with the longest groins located in the center of the field. The design also included a shore parallel revetment also consisting of sand filled geotextile bags. Construction occurred in early summer 2010 by a local contractor. Before the last groins were even completed, the design began to work and started accumulating sand where structures were already in place.
In September 2010, the system endured its first real test when Hurricane Earl passed directly north of the project site. Despite 12 hours of 100+ mph winds, storm waves pounding the beach and surge levels covering the lower parts of the island in water, the geotextile groins maintained their positions and received no structural damage. The client was impressed with the result since the same storm managed to rip palm trees out of the beach, tear the roof off a house on a neighboring island and sink several boats.
Created in 2000, COPRI is a semi-autonomous institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the country's oldest national engineering society. It serves as a multi-disciplinary and international leader in improving knowledge, teaching, development, and practice of civil engineering and other disciplines working in waterway environments. COPRI continues to advance and disseminate scientific and engineering knowledge for their members who are engaged in the sustainable development and protection of coastal, ocean, ports, waterways, and wetlands. They also foster communication and cooperation between domestic and international members in government, industry, and education.
Ocean and Coastal Consultants, is a fifty person consulting engineering firm, founded in 1983, that specializes in providing coastal and port engineering, including underwater inspection with Engineer and Professional Engineer Divers. OCC provides complete project permitting services for the preparation of Federal, State and local regulatory permits related to dredging and coastal construction. OCC’s clients include members of the public and private sectors throughout the United States. OCC provides unique expertise for solving complex problems in coastal and offshore environments. This expertise includes coastal engineering, engineering planning, rehabilitation and replacement design for marine structures, dredged material management design, permitting, and construction administration (Resident Engineering Services). Through its Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and South Carolina offices, the firm draws on the extensive marine construction experience of the professional staff in preparing project plans and specifications and in the development of realistic options and probable costs. OCC typically maintains more than one hundred active projects with construction values ranging from $10,000 to more than $75,000,000.
