Paul Hartfield and Angeline Rodgers of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service speak to the Mississippi River Commission April 18, 2018, about interagency cooperation on Endangered Species Act compliance and aquatic habitat restoration on the Lower Mississippi River.

We conduct research and development in five major areas: Military Engineering: Adaptive Protection, Environmental Effects on Sensor Performance, Austere Entry and Maneuver, and Deployable Force Protection Geospatial Research and Engineering: Geo-enabled Computing Environments, Geospatial Intelligence, and Human Geography Civil Works/Water Resources: Inland and Coastal Navigation; Hydropower; Flood Risk Management and Coastal Systems; Water Supply; Emergency Management; Environment -- Restoration, Regulation, Stewardship; Water Resources Infrastructure; and System-Wide Water Resources Environmental Quality/Installations: Adaptive and Resilient Installations, Sustainable Ranges and Lands, Military Materials in the Environment Engineered Resilient Systems: Weapon Systems, Computational Proving Grounds, Operational Environments, and Analytics To find out how ERDC can help you: ERDCinfo@usace.army.mil

With the recent completion of the Coffee Point project in Louisiana, the Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee has rehabilitated more than 100 miles of secondary channels in six states. Such projects improve habitat for three endangered species along the Lower Mississippi: the Pallid Sturgeon, the Interior Least Tern and the Fat Pocketbook mussel. The projects also provide more paddling, fishing and other outdoor recreation opportunities away from navigation channels. Funding for the Coffee Point project was provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Fish Passage Program and The Nature Conservancy. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provides in-kind engineering and other support for such projects. The Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee, http://lmrcc.org, is a partnership of state natural resource and water quality agencies and the Fish and Wildlife Service, which provide staff support.

The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's Dr. Todd Bridges, the national lead for Engineering With Nature, explains the four major elements to EWN: 1) using science and engineering to produce operational efficiencies; 2) using natural processes for maximum benefit; 3) broadening the range of benefits provided by a project; and 4) working collaboratively across organizations and perspectives. > www: https://ewn.el.erdc.dren.mil/ | Contact: ERDCinfo@usace.army.mil

A tribute to Neil Douglas, who amassed one of the largest university-based collections of fishes in the world. This video, which was prepared for the 2018 meeting of the American Fisheries Society, Mississippi chapter, also addresses the difficulties of maintaining scientific collections. Douglas' collection at the University of Louisiana Monroe was divested in 2017. Much of the collection is now at Tulane University. (Produced by Bruce Reid, Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee and Mississippi River Trust).

Scientists at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi, are studying how to enhance control of invasive Sea Lamprey in the Great Lakes. They are studying whether certain medals can be used to guide lamprey into traps, and they are looking at whether attractive water flows can be generated for optimal trap placement. ERDC scientists are working with biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. (Produced by Bruce Reid, Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee and Mississippi River Trust).

B-Roll w/narration - Thermokarst-cave ice is formed through thermal erosion, where surface water vertically migrates downward into the ground and along the ice wedge. Then the surface water can flow laterally along the ice wedge, eroding underground conduits for water flow. The conduit of water can eventually refreeze and form thermokarst-cave ice. The ice is similar to lake and river ice with occurrence of columnar ice, however these columns point inward toward the center of the conduit, instead of downward like lake and river ice, due to the freezing front coming from all sides. Commonly surrounding the thermokarst-cave ice is reticulate-chaotic cryostructure, where saturated sediments that are often emplaced by the intruded water refreeze in a unique pattern. Interestingly, ice veins will cross-cut some of the thermokarst-cave ice and reticulate-chaotic cryostructure as the ice wedges continue to grow after the thermal erosion event.

B-Roll w/narration - In reticulate-chaotic cryostructures the ice lenses form in a randomly-oriented, multi-directional pattern. This ice pattern is seen around thermokarst-cave ice. The pattern forms from enclosed areas of thawed permafrost, where the soil is in a closed-system and freezes inward from many directions instead of only in the downward direction. The ice is dark brown to black in color

This is a companion to another video on studies of the swimming performance of Sea Lamprey, an invasive species in the Great Lakes. In it, Jan Jeffrey Hoover of the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi, explains how Sea Lamprey differ from true fishes. (Produced by Bruce Reid, Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee and Mississippi River Trust).

The Fish Ecology Team at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) is studying hydraulic barriers (e.g. water flows through locks and dams) to dispersal of invasive Asian carp. In this video, ERDC's Dr. Jan Jeffrey Hoover says hydraulic barriers may have broad applications across the country and be particularly useful in the Upper Mississippi River and Ohio River Basins. (Produced by Bruce Reid, Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee and Mississippi River Trust)

This video depicts the field protocol used by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's Fish Ecology Team for conducting swimming performance studies on large riverine fishes such as Silver Carp and Bighead Carp. The protocol is part of the Institute of Animal Care and Use Committee requirements. The team uses the world's largest mobile swim tunnel to develop predictive models of how various species react to different flow regimes. In testing Asian carp, the team is using the tunnel to determine if flows through locks and dams and other structures can provide hydraulic barriers to keep the invasive carp from entering the upper Mississippi River, sections of the Ohio River and other waterways. (Produced by Bruce Reid, Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee and Mississippi River Trust).

The Fish Ecology Team at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi, has been working for 25 years studying fish, freshwater mussels and macroinvertebrates in streams throughout the Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Plain Ecoregion including the Yazoo River Basin, commonly called the Yazoo Delta. This video focuses on one reach of the Big Sunflower River in the Yazoo Delta near Indianola that has gravel substrates, perennial flow and riparian vegetation, three limiting factors for stream health. (Produced by Bruce Reid, Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee and Wildlife Mississippi).

The Environmental Laboratory at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi has been working for 15 years studying the status and trends of Pallid Sturgeon on the Lower Mississippi River. Based on these studies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi Valley Division signed a conservation agreement under the Endangered Species Act with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outlining various conservation measures in the Lower Mississippi River. These measures include monitoring and research, as well as cooperative efforts to increase side channel and floodplain connectivity to benefit Pallid Sturgeon and the two other endangered species, the Interior Least Tern and the Fat Pocketbook mussel. (Produced by Bruce Reid, Lower Mississippi River Conservation Committee and the Mississippi River Trust).

PHOENIX AIRFIELD, Antarctica (Nov. 15, 2016) -- A McChord Air Force Base C-17 Globemaster III crew and the Army Corps of Engineers teamed up to make the first landing and takeoff of a wheeled and fully-loaded cargo aircraft on a compacted-snow runway an otherwise routine event. A collaboration between the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's Cold Regions Lab and the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs, the surface design required the development of unique certification standards and was engineered to provide a reliable wheeled-runway solution to replace Antarctica's Pegasus Ice runway. “This novel runway design and construction took more than 16 continuous months to complete,” said Terry Melendy, a CRREL research civil engineer. “The runway was designed using a compaction technique to modify the deep snow using heavy rollers weighing up to 160,000 pounds, to change the snow’s strength properties from its natural state creating a denser, higher strength snow foundation (32 inches deep) that can withstand the impact of a C-17 landing. And, in this particular case, the Phoenix was designed to withstand approximately 60 wheeled flights a year.” Throughout design and construction, the team maintained close liaison with NSF and Air Mobility Command standards and evaluation personnel and with the Air Force’s Antarctic C-17 flight group. “The runway was certified in the field for heavy, wheeled aircraft by the Air Mobility Command,” said Melendy. “With the successful completion of the Phoenix runway, we have done something that no one else has done.” ERDCinfo@usace.army.mil