Dwayne Smith, a senior engineer at URS Corp., San Francisco, is a geotechnical program manager on a levee enlargement project in New Orleans that is shaving a decade off the time it normally takes to build and consolidate such a structure.
Archer Western Contractors Ltd., Atlanta, holds the $114.9-million contract to deliver the 7.54-mile stretch of what will be some of the most massive earthen levees in the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System. The levees are built on soft, marshy soils in eastern New Orleans. From toe to toe, they are 320 ft to 360 ft wide, with elevations varying from 18-plus ft to 25-plus ft.