by David Ball
Staff Writer
There’s an army in Jacksonville ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. At the command is a colonel, who makes no bones about the importance of his company’s mission.
“We are operating daily behind the scenes on things that protect the livelihood, economy and people of Florida and the Caribbean,” said Col. Paul Grosskruger. “Day to day, we’re safeguarding the system.”
That safeguarding has included the deployment of personnel to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many more to respond to some of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history.
But these men and women aren’t soldiers. They are biologists, hydrologists, planners, contractors, real estate professionals and, of course, engineers, and they make up the Jacksonville district office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The district is headquartered at the Prudential Building Downtown, where 700 Army Corps workers take up nearly four floors of space. The contingent includes 300 more personnel at 29 satellite offices in Florida and Puerto Rico.
The Army Corps’ history can be traced back to 1775, when Richard Gridley, the first chief engineer for the Continental Army oversaw fortification at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Corps in Jacksonville officially began in 1884, when Capt. William Rossell became the first district engineer in Florida.
The Corps was and is a major command in the U.S. Army, with military chiefs leading the top posts and supported by 34,000 civilian personnel.
One of 41 Army Corps districts in the U.S., the Jacksonville office handles some of the most high-profile projects in the Corps, including the single largest civil works project in history — the $10 billion Congress-approved plan to restore the Everglades.
The Jacksonville district is also working to locate and clean up some of the 700 former military munitions sites used in Florida during World War II that now pose hazards to encroaching development.
The district has built dams, dredged hundreds of miles of coastal waterways and even helped build the space program at Cape Canaveral. Locally, the Army Corps has battled invasive species and is currently overseeing the proposed deepening of miles of the St. Johns River so larger cargo vessels can access Jacksonville’s port.
But with these high-profile projects, there are countless other tasks being performed every day by the Army Corps. Although the tasks may remain out of the public’s view for the most part, they can impact the lives of many at the most critical times.
Disaster: preparation and response
At the district headquarters a “war room” sits empty. In 2004 and 2005, it was manned nearly 24 hours a day as eight hurricanes closed in on Florida and the Caribbean.
While emergency operations centers (EOCs) at county governments and the state got all the press, the Army Corps EOC was preparing for battle.
“What we do here are things most people don’t realize,” said Todd Trulock, district chief of emergency management. “One of our core authorities is flood fighting and water management. We have people that can move flood gates and direct water in rivers and canals.
“That’s an important job in Florida, where we’re surrounded by water,” he added. “A lot more people would be flooded during hurricanes if we didn’t move that water around.”
After the storms, hundreds of thousands of Floridians sought ice, water, electrical power, temporary roof repairs and temporary housing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The ones that received those goods did so because of the Army Corps.
“FEMA contracts with us to provide these things during a response,” said Trulock. “We responded to Hurricane Katrina and I was the project manager in charge of the response to Hurricane Charley.”
Trulock cut his teeth during what was regarded as the worst hurricane in U.S. History before Katrina — Hurricane Andrew that struck South Florida in 1992. He was just a worker bee counting debris trucks then, but he now has some of the most extensive institutional hurricane response knowledge in the Corps.
When asked what he thought about Jacksonville’s vulnerability, and an attitude by some that a major storm won’t ever affect this area, Trulock said lessons learned in Katrina should make people wise.
“Is Jacksonville prepared? Well, I went to a couple of hurricane conferences in Louisiana in 2003 and 2004, and there was all this discussion about how prepared they were, and the mayor of New Orleans said how they had pumps ready to go to handle flooding,” he said.
“They thought they were prepared, and then Katrina happened. Jacksonville is just lucky they have the State of Florida behind them. The state is one of the most prepared entities in the country.”
Managing water and the environment
Hurricanes aren’t the only threats this army responds to. There’s always the dreaded water lettuce.
“We’re still dealing with water lettuce and water hyancith,” said Army Corps invasive species biologist Charles Asthon while displaying pictures of the St. Johns River engulfed in the leafy vegetation.
The South American plant was introduced to the U.S. in the 1800s. The Army Corps used to spend $250,000 to spray harmful herbicides, which never really controlled the plant. Now, weevils and other insects are used to eat the invasives without doing damage to other native flora.
One of the Corps’ chief authorities is the maintenance of navigable harbors and channels. The Clean Water Act of 1972 gave the Corps the sole authority to dredge and fill U.S. waterways, including wetlands. That also gives the Army Corps one of the most important roles in regards to Florida’s marine environment.
In Jacksonville, the marquee project is the proposed deepening of the St. Johns River channel from the current depth of 40 feet to 45 to 50 feet for nearly 20 miles. Project Manager Steve Ross said the deepening will likely require some form of explosives to cut into the bedrock, but that’s if the project is even approved.
“We are conducting a feasibility study that evaluates economic analysis, engineering, environmental impact, real estate and, of course, cost,” said Ross. “That will result in a recommendation to congress, and then they would need to make the approval.”
That politicizing is something that bothers environmental groups like the St. Johns Riverkeeper.
“There’s tremendous political pressure put on that agency, for every issue,” said Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon. “All it takes is a letter from a senator or congressman to the colonel, and that’s a powerful message.”
Still, Armingeon said the Jacksonville Corps office has some of the best biologists and environmental scientists within it’s staff, and their process for receiving public input for projects such as river deepening or filling of wetlands is better than at other district offices.
“I still believe they issue too many wetland permits, but I know one thing, the staff I’ve had dealings with have always treated us fairly and listened to our concerns,” said Armingeon. “There are really good caring people who work in those positions. I think where the disconnect sometimes comes is not on the level of staff, but in the leadership.”
But Grosskruger said the leadership, a military one, helps the largest engineering force in the world function with the focus and precision needed to accomplish its tasks.
“Now we have good marriage between military tradition and civilian work force,” he said. “Military leadership gives that drive, energy, focus, discipline and inspiration that is good. We’re a resilient organization, and I think it’s because of that military kind of ethic.”