The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is banking on a fabric coating, better fill and changes in scour aprons and anchor tubes to make a 5.7-mile-long installation of berm with a sand-filled, geotextile-tube core the most resilient and long-lived geotube beach-hardening project it has built to date.

Weeks Marine Inc., Cranford, N.J., is 20% complete on a $25.7-million contract to restore the beach of Grand Isle, La., from damage caused last year by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The Corps is basing design changes on analysis of performance of an older, non-Corps installation in Galveston, Texas, in the same storms.