Posted on February 4, 2026
The US Army Corps of Engineers, New York District, and Weeks Marine, a contractor dredging and placing sand on the Army Corps’ Fire Island to Montauk Point Project (FIMP), have been recognized with an Award of Merit in the category of ‘Safety Excellence: Water-Environment, Eastern U.S.’, by Engineering News Record, an American weekly magazine covering the construction industry worldwide.
Approximately 825,000 cubic yards of sand was placed in Westhampton Beach and the Village of West Hampton Beach on Long Island east of Manhattan and nearly 450,000 cubic yards in Cupsogue. Completed over several months in winter 2024-25, the work promotes coastal resiliency, restores the barrier island and facilitates natural coastal processes.
FIMP is a major $2.7 Billion initiative restoring areas of the coastline in New York that were damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. It stretches 83 miles from Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point reducing risk of flooding from severe storms and tidal surges and is 100 percent funded by the federal government.
District Commander Col. Alexander Young stated: “This honor recognizes a joint commitment prioritizing worker safety for our civil works projects. Our District ─ and the Army Corps in general ─ places a premium on employee safety at all work sites. Using over-size heavy equipment, an off-shore dredge, tons of steel piping and other apparatus during winter storm season demands robust safeguards. This award validates our detailed approach to and strict enforcement of safety protocols.”
CORPS OF ENGINEERS’ SAFETY PROTOCOLS
Safety protocols outlined in the Army Corps’ EM 385-1-1 Safety Manual:
▶ Comprehensive personal protective equipment (hard hat, safety vest, steel-toe boots, goggles)
▶ Stringent fall protection
▶ Electrical safety
▶ Confined-space training
▶ Performance-based safety system for employees and contractors to prevent accidents
▶ Contractors required to submit an Accident Approval Plan for review before work begins
New York requires all authorized personnel entering an active construction site to wear personal protective equipment: steel-toe boots, hard hat, protective glasses and brightly-colored safety vests. On-site engineers accompany site visitors during tours, making sure everyone stays safe. One way they accomplish this is by communicating directly with contractor’ heavy-equipment operators coordinating movements and warning visitors about potential dangers and how to avoid them.
For their part, Weeks Marine instituted cold-weather protocols during sand-placement: a) preventing frostbite and vessel icing; b) dredging crews outfitted with insulated personal protective equipment; c) heated break areas to escape extreme cold; d) training in cold-stress recognition; and e) crews taking topographic surveys limited to wading depths (an un-manned hydrographic vessel performed deeper data collections.) These efforts paid off: contractor’ personnel logged 58,000+ work hours with no recordable incidents.
Weeks Marine completed Contract 4 of FIMP on the south shore of Long Island: dredging offshore borrow sites, placing sand along the shoreline, building dunes and constructing a feeder beach for the communities of Cupsogue, Pikes Beach and Westhampton Beach reducing flood risk from severe storms and tidal surges. (A feeder beach deposits sand into the prevailing ocean current nourishing down-drift beaches to the west and offsetting sediment loss in the project area until the next replenishment.)
TEAM CONTRIBUTORS
New York District employees making significant contributions to FIMP serve on the Project Delivery Team ─ a group of interdisciplinary professionals involved with planning and design, construction, finance and legal issues:
Anthony Ciorra Chief, Coastal Restoration & Special Projects Branch
Mark Lulka Project Manager
Kate Ackerman Project Planner
Catherine Alcoba Acting Chief, Environmental Analysis Branch
Karen Baumert Engineer
Jaskirat Gill Electrical Engineer
Eli Greenblatt Coastal Engineer
Bill Johnson Assistant District Counsel
Michael McCue Contract Specialist
Kevin Merenda Area Engineer
Suzana Rice Senior Coastal Engineer
Ellen Simon Assistant District Counsel
Robert Smith Biologist
Ariana Stimpfl Archaeologist
Chelsea Yuen Technical Manager
ADDITIONAL HONORS
Last year New York District received another honor for safety. Eighty-five employees from the Physical Support and Survey and Mapping Branches operating out of Caven Point Marine Terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey, received the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Voluntary Protection Program Star Award ─ the highest level of recognition with OSHA’s VPP Program recognizing exemplary achievement in workplace health and safety.
MOVING FORWARD
To date, most sand-replenishment projects under FIMP have been completed. The next phase is providing home-elevations for approximately 4,400 eligible structures in flood-prone areas of Long Island’s south shore (Suffolk County, NY). Currently conducting a pilot program, a limited number of home-elevations are expected to begin later this year and scaling up in future years.
