Transcript_SDtB_Virtual_Industry_Day_16OCT2026.pdf

Enterprise Dredge Delivery Center - Scope Dredge to Budget Virtual Industry Day

October 16, 2026, 1:02PM

NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER:

This transcript has been edited to correct obvious spelling, grammatical, and transcription errors for improved legibility; however, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of its contents.

This document is provided solely as a rough, informal record of the Industry Day discussions held on October 16, 2026, and must not be relied upon as an official or binding representation of the Government's requirements. All topics, procurement strategies, acquisition methodologies, evaluation criteria, timelines, etc. discussed during this event are preliminary as of the date of the Industry Day and subject to change as the procurement develops. The official solicitation, when published on the Government Point of Entry (SAM.gov), shall govern all aspects of this procurement.

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:

Dylan Davis 0:06 They handle some of that, and this will be a good kickoff for that.

So again, we've been talking with folks, trying to present information as we get it.

I think many of you have heard the team here in the Corps met last week and really kind of put pen to paper.

Hopefully we're able to provide some good information for folks. We will walk through what we have today, and we certainly want to hear back from you.

Any questions?

We'll talk a little bit about schedule at the end.

Dylan Davis 0:47 And then go from there.

So we're going to walk through this. Certainly, if you have questions along the way, let us know.

This is intended to be more of a dialogue as we walk through, and then, like I said, we'll also show some of the tools.

The dashboard has a lot of the detailed information on it as well. So, with that, we will go ahead and dive right in. Ros, do you have any opening comments? Nope, I don't have anything. OK, great.

We're going to do some background. I think most are tracking it, but we just want to make sure folks are tracking the latest on the concept. We'll talk about the new scope that we've done, which is based on additional looking at the projects and feedback that we've received from industry, so you'll see how that scope has changed.

We will then talk about some of the details of what this contract will look like.

Any kind of mods, options, things like that. We'll talk a little bit on the schedule.

We'll dive into the evaluation criteria that we are proposing to use on this, and then, like I said, talk in a lot more detail with the dashboard that was developed by the Galveston District.

From there, we'll talk a little bit about some of the data and tools. We've highlighted these things in the past.

We're going to give a little more detail on them and show them.

And then, like I said, we'll close with the schedule, the battle rhythm that we're working on for this effort.

So as always, you know that this is moving very fast, so things are subject to change.

They are different this week than they were last week and probably are subject to change again after that.

Dylan Davis 2:52 So again, we're trying to give you all the most up-to-date information that we have.

The center is being developed out of the South Atlantic Division, but it's a team of folks all across the country in the DEEP team right now. This is the team that is kind of setting the foundation for this enterprise delivery center that will be stood up about a year from now. And so, one of the parts of that center, or the team's efforts, is to develop the scope dredge to budget concept.

Again, what we're looking at here is to try and maximize the amount of work that we get done on these projects, taking a slightly different approach than we historically do, again modeled after kind of the design build concept, but applying that to dredging. So right now, we're talking about 10 projects in the Galveston District. We have moved that to two kinds of subgroups. There'll be two separate contracts, but still the same project, and we're looking for industry to basically propose innovative ways to be able to accomplish these projects with a known fixed price associated with it.

So as I said, these are now the breakout.

We're essentially doing an unrestricted scope dredge to budget contract, and then we're going to do a set aside one as well.

We are basically mirroring the efforts, so we're using the same performance criteria, same selection criteria, generally the same schedules. The only real difference is, again, one being unrestricted and one being set aside.

Dylan Davis 5:22 So for the unrestricted one, these are looking at our major deep draft navigation channels along the Texas coastline.

Again, it's a fixed price of 134 million.

We do plan on having an option in the unrestricted one. This is to potentially allow for additional funding that may come in in a work plan that would increase that work by about $15 million.

The period of performance for the unrestricted is essentially a year. As we've talked in the past, we're looking to get through our solicitation process for an award in April, with work to commence in the May time frame, and then essentially we'll have a year to conduct that work.

There are interim kind of milestone schedules that we'll lay out here in a second.

Moving to the small business one, again, same concept, but this is focused on our shallow draft project, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, and some secondary side channels along the Texas coast. We don't see any options proposed for this one, so it will be just the fixed price of 26.2 million that we have budgeted for these projects. And again, a similar period of performance, looking for award of that solicitation in April, commencing work in May, and having essentially a year to do that work.

So here's kind of the scope, broken down on the project level.

You see the projects under the unrestricted; these are the typical ones. You would see the depths that we are looking to dig into, and this will be the priority one work. We'll talk about priority one and what that means in a second.

That was getting at how we're going to do some of our selection criteria.

Here's the project breakdown and budget, how much money we have on each of those projects, totaling the 134.7 million. And then on the set aside one, same thing: the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the two side channels, the depth that we're digging to, and the project specific funding.

That gets us to 26.2 million.

So we'll talk a little bit about, you know, kind of mods, how we're planning on dealing with some of that, or at least envisioning handling some of that, and then the options that I mentioned before.

So some of the things that we're considering and thinking about for modifications: you know, one of the questions we've gotten and talked about with folks is, what if we come in and dredge an area, and then we need to come back?

You know, we've cleaned an area, but then it's shoaled in again.

There's some need, some emergency comes up.

How are we going to deal with that? What we're envisioning is that we would work with the selected contractors to do a mod to go back and clean those areas.

But what we're thinking is those would be bilateral mods, again recognizing that you're going to have schedules.

You may not have availability to do that work, and so we didn't want to make it unilateral.

That would throw things off for y'all, but if you did have availability and were able to do it, we would handle any of those kinds of changes under a bilateral mod. We are acknowledging differing site conditions with sediment characterization.

We think we know what all our material is, but, you know, things pop up sometimes that are unforeseen, and so we will have that in there as well. We will have variations in there, although that is a little interesting because all of this is kind of fixed price, and the areas that we're setting are pretty fixed to a depth, and so variations may not apply, but we will look to include that in there. And then of course we'll have time in there for weather, to deal with that if things pop up, as they usually do.

One of the other things that we're looking at doing, though, is because there's not really a bid schedule per se with this. I think we will have a bid schedule eventually, but it won't look like your traditional bid schedule.

It's almost like a lump sum.

But there are things in there that we do want to include that we do know pop up on the job.

So, for example, standby, trawling, maybe some inter-project transit miles if we need to move, particularly for hopper dredging; that may happen.

And so, as part of the proposal, we want to establish those rates up front from industry, and that way if we need to utilize any of those, we already have rates established and we can do a modification to include that work or those activities in the contract.

And then as I said before, we do plan on including an option in the work plan. Again, if exercised, or if we receive the funding, it will give us the flexibility to exercise that option and potentially get a little additional work at Houston.

For the set aside, we basically plan on doing the exact same thing. We want to establish rates for standby, but don't foresee a need to establish any rates for trawling or inter-project transit miles, given the equipment that will work on those. And as I said, we're not planning on doing any options associated with the set aside work.

So, schedules. And maybe before I jump to schedules, I'll just pause a little bit.

I know I'm going through this pretty quick.

Any questions out there so far?

Anything folks want to ask?

OK. I will press on.

So the schedule, again.

So we're giving a period of performance of essentially a year on both of those, but we do have some kind of restrictions along the way: interim milestones, completion dates, windows, things like that, and these are all highlighted here.

So one of the things is, starting out, Galveston.

This is one of our priority areas that we want to get started immediately.

So we're saying, you know, commence work on 1 May to get that work to happen.

Obviously that will be somewhat contingent upon what the actual award dates are and things like that, but assuming everything falls into place, a Notice to Proceed (NTP) and all that would be issued, and then we're looking for a start of 1 May. We're also looking for the same thing in the Bayport Ship Channel, also needing a 1 May start time, and then from there, there are really no other restrictions. We do have preferred times, like at Brazos Island for turtles, but there isn't an actual restriction.

When we move over to the set aside, again, same overall timeline, but within there are different windows highlighted for the different areas.

So again, you'll be able to work around those and schedule accordingly to get that work done in sequence.

Ryan Hodgkinson 14:38 Yeah. Just for example, like the channel to Victoria, you've got the whooping crane window. Is that going to remain only in effect like the lower reach of the Victoria Barge Canal or are you going to apply it to the entire GIWW?

Sara Knoll 15:09 So yeah, it's not going to apply to the entire GIWW. It'll only apply to those specific areas where the window applies. The dashboard notes for those reaches include a notation where those impacted reaches are, and if there's no note about whooping cranes or any other environmental windows, then nothing applies.

Brian P EncoreDP 15:48 Yeah, on the unrestricted contract, why did you choose not to separate it out by the different types of dredges?

In your first slide, you stated that you're looking to add competition, but by combining an entire contract that has hoppers, and there are only a few contractors in the country that have a hopper dredge, you're limiting competition.

Dylan Davis 16:21 So the idea, with this scope dredge to budget concept, is that there would be opportunities for contractors to work together, through joint ventures, to basically come up with the best suite of work. The idea is that there would be an ability for contractors to work together to kind of come up with an innovative approach to how to attack this problem.

Ryan Hodgkinson 17:14 Your unrestricted bracket here, with all of these reaches listed, these are all going to go to one contractor?

Dylan Davis 17:30 I mean, there will be one selected prime, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's one contractor. Again, it could be a joint venture, it could be like a prime sub relationship.

There will be one offer selected.

Chris Gillespie 18:11 About combining the equipment. You mentioned attack the problem. What do you mean by attack the problem? What problem are we attacking?

Dylan Davis 18:22 Well, I mean, it is just finding better ways to keep these channels maintained. You know, maybe providing an opportunity to get more work done out of these than we would under our standard, hey, go dig 1,000,000 cubic yards. This gives industry an ability to kind of come up with a better solution that may actually get the Corps a better product at the end. So, attacking the problem is keeping the navigation channels maintained the best we can.

Brian P EncoreDP 19:08 You say to better maintain the channels. Has industry not been keeping these waterways open? I mean, are we trying to fix a problem that's not there?

Dylan Davis 19:20 So I would say that we have kept them open, but we also have had restrictions, and so I would say we're running a thin line. Belynda, maybe if you want, you can expand on that. But, you know, we're not getting full depth and width in all these areas. This is driving at whether there is an opportunity that we can actually get some of these areas in better shape than we have historically.

Jim Haussener - CMANC 20:09 So is this to get the projects dredged more efficiently or is it to save money?

I certainly thought I heard General Kelly saying he was looking at saving money doing this.

Dylan Davis 20:23 So I would say we are looking to use all the money we have available to dredge. We’re providing the funding amounts up front for the overall effort to see how contractors can approach this innovatively. We are focused on saving money, but yes, it is very much also focused on improving navigability, getting more bang for our buck.

And again, this is a pilot to try and see if there is something here that we can change in the way we're doing things that actually gives us a better product.

Eric Ellefsen 21:17 Dylan, this is Eric with Weeks.

I'm sorry, I didn't know how to raise my hand, so I'm just going to chime in. When you mentioned the variations clause, is it fair to say that you're talking about changing the footprint of the project area, but the quantity risk within the designated footprint is the contractor's? Is that how I understand that?

Dylan Davis 21:38 So, we will identify the areas, and so there's a required area associated with that. That will have the quantity stated, and then that's where we'll also provide, you know, the tools that we'll talk about towards the end that provide shoaling rates and things like that. And so that will allow contractors to kind of test and know how material is going to come in on them, and then how much more additional work they may want to try and take on when we start getting into our priority one, priority two, and priority three areas.

That's our attempt to try and get at how much more we can get over just our kind of base routine work.

But yes, there is a little bit of risk, I will say, in that.

In those areas, by having a fixed area, again, we want to provide information to help mitigate some of those risks, but then it becomes up to the contractor as far as timing of, you know, when you want to do that. Maybe some of the higher shoaling areas you want to do quicker, whereas some of the other areas can hold a little bit longer.

Eric Ellefsen 22:57 Thank you.

Dylan Davis 23:01 OK, in the chat I've got: do any of the requirements require partnering per the USACE Partnering Playbook? If so, do the districts do separate solicitations or is it the Prime's responsibility?

Yeah.

Dylan Davis 23:20 I'm not sure what they mean by the USACE Partnering Playbook, but we will do two solicitations, one unrestricted, one small business set aside, and it would be the Prime's responsibility to partner, joint venture, or subcontract with other entities if they so desire.

For the set aside, why not wait for the SBA to reclassify the definition of small business?

That's outside of our control.

I don't know when that may or may not happen, and so if something does officially come out on that that changes things, then I think we'll just have to adjust.

But, you know, for now we're working with the rules that we have in front of us. We're proceeding forward with business as usual until told otherwise.

Michael - Attain Leadership Solutions 24:19 No, I was the one that posted the partnering question.

So the clarity I hope to provide is the USACE Partnering Playbook requires a third-party facilitator for construction of $20 million or higher. Dredging seems to be in a middle ground.

I was just trying to find out if third-party strategic partnering is part of this, or do you tend to just not do partnering for dredging?

Dylan Davis 24:49 I'm not sure, because I've never seen that partnering playbook.

I guess I would have to see that to kind of delve more into it and see if that would apply.

Yeah, we can take that as a due-out for us.

Dylan Davis 25:12 Paul, what is the location for the $15 million option for Houston Bay, Belynda?

Belynda Kinnman 25:20 Paul's question and Leia’s question I think might be answered as you continue going through your slides regarding like those locations and the dashboard.

Belynda Kinnman 25:34 Yeah, so my recommendation is to try to keep going through your slides so we can answer some of those detailed questions.

Dylan Davis 25:41 There are areas within Houston and Bayport that have advanced maintenance, and not addressing this will have impacts. Will those be defined?

We'll talk about that. Bilateral mod only: does that mean relevant FARs that would otherwise allow a unilateral directive would not be included?

I answered that below. We will include that clause.

My preference is to not do unilateral change mods if I can help it, but we will include that in the solicitation.

As far as I understand, this will limit the number of bidders since few companies have the full suite of equipment to respond.

To that comment, again, we're also hoping to get contractors that have, you know, their own unique equipment to team up with others that may have something they don't.

Comment, not question: scope dredge to budget makes good sense, and no comments.

Got the comment.

Email response on partnering, will do.

So yeah, we'll jump back into the slides.

I think we're mostly caught up there, and then we'll come back to the questions.

OK. So, talking about the criteria, essentially this gets broken out into a two-phased approach.

So our phase one will be more of a broader kind of selection.

This is basically showing that there is a bonding plan, and it's looking at past performance of the contractors that are looking to be involved, you know, highlighting any experience working in Texas, and then ultimately an equipment plan. And again, we're looking for, you know, letters of commitment from contractors that may be looking to work with each other. Again, not the formal agreements and all that stuff yet, but something that can show that, yes, this is in fact moving forward and there is a plan in place.

So we're trying to get just some generic criteria out there to get folks on board and part of the process. When we move into phase two, that's where we get a lot of the more detailed stuff that we're going to want to talk about, and at that point, I think we've said that's where we would be looking to pare down the number of prospective bidders to like three to five companies or groups of companies, and from there, that's where we'll look at, you know, the project priority that we'll talk about.

We do also want to know about the management plan and the approach to doing this, what the schedules are, and the equipment plan to be used and where.

For the unrestricted one, any small business participation that they're going to be utilizing.

And then ultimately, because this is an RFP, we have to identify costs, and we'll talk a little bit about that.

I know it's weird because the cost is already set up front, but that's again just part of the analysis. You have to look at cost, and then ultimately we'll have a section in there on betterments.

These are for things that a contractor may propose that are kind of over and above what we've talked about in the solicitation, and we'll talk about that too.

So again, these are just the factors that we're looking at for phase one. They are the same for both the unrestricted and set aside solicitations.

Again, this just gives the breakdown of those things. For interested folks looking to be part of this, this should be a pretty easy bar to get.

That's where we get into more of the details.

Again, the required and additional work. This is our priority one work, and then any kind of additional work that may be extra, that a contractor may be thinking they can do, will be broken out in the priority two and priority three areas, but we do have the minimum of what we need for these projects laid out in the priority one reaches.

Again, some of the details of the management plan.

We're looking for, you know, decision authority, how it's going to work, working through this contract.

How a contractor envisions, you know, any kind of logistics stuff: where you're bringing things from, what might move on and off a project, any safety issues, and how you are going to address those things. And then, as we talked a little bit about, any kind of ability to do emergency shoaling response plans, things like that, and equipment that may be able to help with those kinds of unforeseen things.

Moving into the next one, the project schedule, this is where we're looking to do a cost loaded schedule. And so this is going to be helpful in helping us also determine how to pay out, you know, when work is happening and the cost that's being incurred when those activities are happening along your schedule.

Again, we'll want to know that overall schedule, but then the cost associated with that, to help support payment.

Any kind of equipment plan, you know, the equipment that you're planning on bringing on site to get this work done, and then any kind of partnering agreements that you'll have in place.

And then the small business participation, as we said, obviously only for the unrestricted one, will be evaluated based on how much small business is being utilized as part of this.

The cost, as I said, really all we're doing under the cost one is ensuring that it's reasonable and complete.

It's not, you know, we need 130 million on day one and then 7 million over the next year;

that's the kind of thing we're looking for. We just want it to make sense overall how the costs are laid out. And then again, betterments; that'll be kind of like an extra.

An example of that might be a beneficial use, some other way of placement, that, again, is outside of anything that we included. So, you know, you would be responsible for having permits and things like that.

But you may be aware of these opportunities that the Corps is not, and so that would be something that you could include in your proposal as a way to further get evaluation criteria benefits.

OK.

So, going into kind of the specifics of the individual ones, they then also have their ratings.

So as I said, on the factors for required and additional work, we're basically saying if a contractor comes in and says, I can just do all the priority one work, the minimum guaranteed, we're going to rate that as acceptable. And then at that point, the more work someone is willing to take on, that's where it can move up. If you can do the priority two work, or a certain percentage of that, that's where you then are moving into the next category, good. We can't do numbers.

It's got to be more words, not numbers or percentages or things like that.

So that's why we're using these criteria.

But ultimately then, if you're able to get into doing priority three, we're going to rate that as outstanding. Obviously, if you come in and say we can't even do priority one, that's not going to work, and so that's where we go into marginal or unacceptable.

And so this is where it could look different.

With the dashboard, we've kind of given an example of how that might work, where you would come in and say, well, yeah, I'm going to do all of priority one. And, you know, for Houston, I think I can also get through priority two and three, and actually propose some betterments. At Freeport, I can only get through two and some of three for that amount of money. At Corpus, I can only do one. And then at Texas City, I can do all of two, but I can't do any of three. And at that point, that's where we would look at it and then score it accordingly on the proposal.

But all of this could vary a little bit based on different equipment mixes and how a particular contractor or contractors want to propose it.

Hey, Garrett, go ahead.

Garrett Gibson 36:33 Yeah, Dylan, just on this slide, just to be clear.

So, for example, for Houston Ship Channel, you have $55 million to work with, and you're seeing how far that can take you, just for that 55 million.

Same for Freeport with 11 million, correct?

Dylan Davis 36:54 Yes, for the most part.

There may be some items that are shared costs where we may be able to shift some of our funds around a little bit, again trying to work more to that 134 million number.

But yes, these are the project amounts, the funding amounts for each project.

Again, how you lay out your cost loaded schedule, you know, based on how your costs are, may be a little different on the internal, but for us, we're highlighting that we have $55 million for Houston.

Garrett Gibson 37:39 Right. So, the contractor's proposal should be based on doing Houston for $55 million, but you mentioned that there could be some moving of the funds around, but that would be dictated by the Corps and not the contractor.

Dylan Davis 37:54 It's... how do I say?

I mean, there's always a little bit of ability to move money from a reprogramming standpoint in the Corps, but we're thinking of it more like mobilization.

Well, how does that get paid out?

Well, you know, depending on where you go to a certain project, you may pay it out of one project versus another project, and that would then allow for different amounts across the board to be used on those projects, if that makes sense.

Garrett Gibson 38:36 OK, understood.

Eric Ellefsen 38:47 Dylan, I think you mentioned this is Factor 4 in the evaluation.

Will the other factors be weighted, and will the outcome be kind of obvious to people?

Or does this all go into a black box?

Ros Shoemaker 39:00 So within the solicitation and the instructions to offerors, we're going to tell you which factors are most important and which factors are less important.

So I do believe we're going to try to have a draft solicitation out to industry next week.

But I believe Factor 4 is going to be the most important factor.

Frank Belesimo 39:27 Good morning. If using numbers is not allowed under this evaluation, how do you determine a winner?

Is it the one that's the bluest, the most purple?

How does it work?

Ros Shoemaker 39:41 So there's going to be a source selection evaluation board (SSEB) and a source selection advisory council (SSAC), and then the actual source selection authority (SSA).

The board is going to rate each proposal against the evaluation criteria, and then the source selection advisory council is going to take that information, and they can at that point compare proposals to each other.

But it can be somewhat subjective; that is what the tradeoff process allows for.

Depending on how similar proposals are, how different they are, there could be a clear winner, or it could be very subjective and very close.

Frank Belesimo 40:32 Is there ultimately a score that gets applied to each bidder?

That is, I guess, functionally, how does...

Ros Shoemaker 40:37 There.

Frank Belesimo 40:39 How does the decision get made without a score?

Ros Shoemaker 40:43 There's... all we use are the adjectival ratings: outstanding, good, acceptable, marginal, unacceptable.

And there are a couple pass/fail ratings where they're either acceptable or unacceptable in phase one.

But it's a subjective trade off where we compare those factors that are most important and see where they round out at the end.

But I guess on the back end, though, there is transparency; there is a debrief. We will have debrief opportunities to explain how we evaluated each proposal, not necessarily a comparison of proposals, but how the team evaluated a specific proposal.

Correct.

Dylan Davis Bill Doyle has a comment in the chat. Hey, Bill.

Yeah, just to be clear, John.

I see Bill and Pat said:

The price of the project is set by the Corps, and industry competes on what the Corps can get for that price. Is that changing? Can contractors bid the project and the group and also offer a lower price in their response to an RFP?

No, the cost is still fixed. I mean, the overall cost is the same, and how it is worked within those projects, the contractor will decide.

So we're going to have to pay $55 million out of Houston Ship Channel, but that's not necessarily how all your costs are broken down, because of, again, the way you set up things.

And so there's flexibility in that regard from a contractor standpoint, but we're going to have to pay out the 55, the 11, the two, and the 22, making, you know, ultimately the 134.

And I may not be explaining it the best way, but our numbers are still fixed.

Those parts won't change.

We can't move that.

We don't want a lower price for the RFP. We want to spend all of our 134 million. We just want to get the most we can out of it.

If that helps.

William Doyle 43:12 I think you explained that. Thank you.

Dylan Davis 43:18 When will contractors know what is important?

Typically telling contractors is significantly more important.

Yeah. And so, as Ros said, yeah, I mean, we will.

It won't be a number, but we will highlight which of the factors are more important or less important.

Jim, you got your hand raised and you had a question too.

Jim McNally 43:52 Just to be clear, the risk of how much quantity is actually in the channel when the contractor shows up is on the contractor, meaning the price is the same no matter how many yards are there. When you get there, you need to clear the channel, and then whether or not you have got to go back is subject to a potential change order.

Have I got that right?

Dylan Davis 44:24 The dashboard. The Galveston Team will share the Dashboard.

Belynda Kinnman 44:50 Hey. Yeah. So while Sara's getting ready and sharing, just an overview of the dashboard:

we tried to come up with something that was a little bit more interactive versus just PDF sheets that you guys would have to go through to get all the detailed information and whatnot.

And so we set up this dashboard, and we're open to feedback on this, but we set up the dashboard to show you the different project areas and then the priority areas listed out.

As Dylan has been kind of briefing, each project area will have a priority one.

Some will have a priority two, and others may have a priority three.

And so as you click on or filter through a specific project, or if you want to look at the whole district as a whole on what's included in the scope dredge to budget, on the left hand side you can filter by project.

So on the left hand side, you can leave everything unfiltered and it'll show you everything, or if you want to kind of dig into a little bit more project detail, filter to a specific project. Turn that filter on, and it'll zoom you into that project area. It'll show you the highlighted areas within that project that are in this scope. And so for Galveston, right, everything's included in Galveston, so almost the entire channel. Now, as you see on Galveston, you have different kinds of shaded areas.

So you've got orange, you've got some hatching, and then you've got some squiggly type of lines.

So the orange areas, wherever you go, on whatever project, orange means that's priority one, and that's the required. So at a minimum, priority one required is what we're expecting the contractor to be able to say they could do in order to be acceptable, as Dylan kind of briefed through the evaluation.

The hatched area is priority two, and so not everything on the project is hatched.

And then there's the squiggly line hatch, which is priority three.

And so we've got kind of a legend on the left hand side to, you know, remind you of what that is.

And then also on the left hand side is the budget that's been briefed, along with historical quantities and estimated quantities as a whole.

And then if you shift over to the right hand side, it'll show you the list of the different reaches by priority.

Starting at the top right, the Galveston entrance channel is a priority one. We list out what the depth is that we require the contractor to hit, so this would be... I can't read that. 50 feet.

We will list out... we're still working on this one, but we'll list out the estimated quantity per reach, and then in the notes we have a little bit of information that would be helpful as you guys are looking through this.

So for example, this one is restricted to hopper dredging only, since the placement areas are under construction right now and won't be available for this period of performance.

And then up at the top right, we also have the NTP date.

This is something that we're just kind of throwing out there; this is a date that we use, a proposed start date, and that's what we're utilizing to do estimated quantity calculations for you.

And so that's kind of the information that'll be on every single one of these reaches. So, you'll have priority one required, and it's listed down from priority one to priority three.

So as you scroll further down the list, you have all your priority ones, and then you start getting into your priority twos.

So here, this one, right, it's overlapping with the orange, and we kind of worked on trying to figure out a good way to do this.

And Leia, this kind of goes to the question you asked in the chat on advanced maintenance.

So this area is an advanced maintenance area, and so on the priority one you saw a certain depth on there, and then here under priority two, you're going to see a deeper depth.

So it doesn't mean we need you to do an additional 51 feet, but that just means the required depth is 51 feet for this area.

So if a contractor chooses to go into priority two areas, that's going to show you what the required depth is for that priority two.

And we'll also have, you know, the NTP estimated quantity just for that area, and then any notes that would be needed. Then as you keep going further down, I don't know if this one... yeah, so this won't have priority three.

Priority three for Galveston Harbor is the harbor shelves, for those that are familiar with this area. And so we've got the required depth for this priority reach, as well as some notes in there.

And so we're working through it, but each of these will have all of those information boxes filled out.

So you'll have an NTP date that we use to estimate the quantity.

We'll have an estimated quantity per reach, and we'll have the notes as well as the required depth.

And so if you want to go into... yeah. And so here on the top right, it's highlighted in yellow for deep draft.

This is the deep draft contract, and then if you click on the shallow draft contract, this will be the shallow draft contract. And so these are the project areas and the reaches specifically for the shallow draft.

So these are not included in the deep draft contract.

And it'll be the same information: the priority areas, notes information, the environmental window information.

And then we did list out all of the placement areas that would be available for that contract.

Right now, today, we're taking the stance that we're not going to tell you what placement area to go to specifically.

We will list out the placement areas that are available within that project, and you guys can determine, you know, what placement areas you would like to utilize.

And then, yes, ma'am.

Erica Janocha 51:39 Belynda, we have a question in the chat.

Will the hopper dredging only restriction be lifted?

That's coming from curtain.

Belynda Kinnman 51:56 So the restrictions will be stated in each of the notes. So there are some that will be...

yes, now that I'm saying this, it could be a little different.

We'll clarify a little bit more. So, when we say hopper here, I guess we just mean it's got to go to the ODMDS.

Ancil Taylor 52:32 Just to clarify my question, because I don't know that it was answered.

If I look at slide 12, for example, we have four channels, priority one, two, and three. Will we know that? Is priority two for Freeport equal to priority two on the Houston Ship Channel?

Or are all priority twos equally important to the Corps?

And the reason for my question is, if I know that I've got $134 million coming to it, and Houston Ship Channel priority two is more important than Corpus Christi priority two, I'm going to take all of the money that I can pull from all of the other channels where they're budgeted and move it to ensuring that I can deliver priority one, priority two, and priority three, and maybe some betterments, to Houston.

While I'm using the money, it may come out of the other channels; basically, it's just subsidizing. I may not be able to do priority three and priority two at Texas City for the $134 million, but I can use that money to make sure that I get Houston Ship Channel.

If I know that the Corps has said, look, Houston Ship Channel is significantly more important to me than Freeport, then I know that I can get a better score if I ensure in my proposal that I can get priority two and priority three done for Houston Ship Channel. I may not be able to get priority three done on anything else, but I'll make sure that I spend my money from the $134 million pot accordingly. I'm going to make sure that I take that into account.

I hate guessing what's important to the Corps and being compared to somebody else who guessed at what was important and happened to get a better score than I did because his guess was better.

Belynda Kinnman 55:22 I'm not going to pull it up because I don't have it ready in front of me, but Ancil, what you stated is something that we've discussed pretty thoroughly, and we've gone back and forth on how to address it. And, you know, I'll be frank, we do need Houston to be prioritized over some of our lower tonnage channels, and we wanted to figure out a way to be able to communicate that to the contractors, to show that if you do more in Houston Ship Channel, potentially, versus some of our lower channels, that weight will be more significant versus a contractor who says they'll do more on the lower tonnage channels and just the minimum required for Houston. And so we've developed a matrix.

That matrix is going to be a weighted type of matrix to show, and I guess I don't want to use the word calculate, but to show and calculate the contractors' proposals and have them weighted by the channel and the significance of each of the channels to, you know, the national economy, I'll say.

And so we're still working on that.

We will provide that to make sure that it's clear to the contractors that are submitting proposals how we're looking at that and comparing it.

Ancil Taylor 56:43 Well, that was basically the question: will we know about it before we submit our proposals?

That's what's key.

Belynda Kinnman 56:52 Yep. And that's the plan that we've got, to show it to you guys, that way you guys know exactly what we're thinking and are not guessing.

Ros Shoemaker 57:06 Yeah, that is the plan. And I don't know, with us trying to get the draft RFP out next week, if that will be included in the draft RFP.

But we do plan on moving forward with that and having it in the final request for proposal that goes out.

Ancil Taylor 57:21 And you'll recognize that because the 134 million is awarded, we will have the ability within ourselves to funnel the money to the areas that are important to you.

Ros Shoemaker 57:36 Acknowledged, yes.

Ryan Hodgkinson 57:52 Could you expand a little on the continuing maintenance of the DMPAs (dredged material placement areas) and what your approach is going to be to that moving forward?

Ros Shoemaker 58:08 So right now, I mean, this doesn't include any DMPA maintenance. Those are handled separately, and for the time being, that will continue to be managed at the district level through a separate contract.

*break in recording/transcript due to error.

Jim McNally 0:06 You've described this as a pilot. I guess my question is, how are you going to measure success?

You know, for example, you've got price history on all these channels.

When you look back at how much you got done, is that how you're going to measure success, or what are going to be the metrics that would lead you to do more or less of this in the future?

Dylan Davis 0:32 Yeah, I mean, from me thinking about it, I think that is it.

Are we going to actually get more dredging?

Are we going to see that innovation come through that does translate into us getting more of these areas dug that we may not historically have done?

And then what are going to be the other challenges that come up with it, that we have to determine whether it's worth the effort to put it together?

You know, this is all being done right now.

Obviously there's a lot of work being put into that.

Is this what we want to do?

Are we getting enough additional dredging to warrant the level of effort that we have to put in up front?

But I think it's really going to come back to, yeah, did we get more than we traditionally do?

Belynda or Galveston team, if you have any thoughts too.

But that's how I'm thinking of it.

Next question: will VEQ apply to the estimated quantity listed on the dashboard priority areas?

So again, as I was kind of saying, we're including variations in there.

We'll have the clause in there, but how we're applying it is basically clearing these areas.

We're providing the estimated quantity, and you will have the ability to see shoaling rates, and so the contractor will have to kind of pick when they may want to go after something and then account for what that quantity is likely to be out there.

But the variation wouldn't be on the quantity. The quantity on the dashboard is really for information purposes.

Right.

Ryan Hodgkinson 2:43 Yes, Sir. I don't really have a question, but I guess I can't help but say, like, you know, I don't think dredging has ever been cheaper in the state of Texas, outside of the fuel price.

It's been very, very competitive.

There have never been more dredges on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Do you guys see it differently, you know, based on the past 10 years?

Dylan Davis 3:18 I mean, again, I'll let Belynda or Galveston jump in if they want to.

No, I think we acknowledge that.

You know, I mean, we're getting maybe good prices, but we're still seeing channel conditions. We're still seeing restrictions and things like that.

So are there ways that we can make our dollar go farther and maybe reduce some of the requirements that we put on by how we write our contracts historically? That may open the door to essentially, at the same prices that we're paying, get a better product and get more material moved, rather than the traditional just go dig 1,000,000 yards.

Yeah, going and digging 1,000,000 cubic yards is straightforward, and maybe we get a good price on it, but it doesn't necessarily go after what we're trying to do in all cases, and improve navigability.

Belynda Kinnman 4:31 Hey. Hey, Dylan. I will make a couple comments just because, you know, this was brought up twice already this morning.

So, Ryan, I agree.

I don't think we're saying that we're not getting good bids from all of you guys on dredging our channels.

I think everything that Dylan said is correct, but I think, just to, you know, reiterate from the first meeting, this kind of was a directed type of thing for us to think differently and be a little innovative on how we're doing our dredging contracts, and that's coming all the way up from the ASA.

So this is our approach on doing this and showing, you know, leadership higher up that we are looking at things differently and taking a different, innovative approach.

I will say this isn't the way this contract started off. It started off as, hey, how can we look at our channels and have the contractors maintain the channels for a certain budget?

And we kind of learned from discussions with all you guys that that posed a lot of risk.

And so we started pivoting to more of a scope based approach, which is kind of where we landed on this dashboard approach, showing the different areas and having you guys clear it, and you guys aren't on the hook for ensuring that that channel isn't shoaled in through the duration of the performance period.

And so I don't want you guys to leave here and think like, hey, we're saying that we're not getting a good deal for the dredging that you guys are doing.

I honestly don't believe that, but what I hope you guys take away is that we are trying to look at things differently and taking your guys’ feedback on improving that.

Ryan Hodgkinson 6:21

No, I appreciate that. And I respect the position that you're in.

You know, this is a big change, and I'm sure you guys are having to put a lot into it.

Thank you.

Chris Frabotta 6:38 Hey Belynda, if I could, Chris Frabotta.

So the stated objectives at the beginning of the presentation talked about reducing channel restrictions and lowering maintenance dredging costs, and I agree with the rest of the folks saying we really appreciate you guys putting the effort in, and the dashboard is an excellent product. But going back to the stated objectives, reducing channel restrictions and lowering maintenance dredging costs:

I mean, if you look at the maintenance dredging costs across the country, which is in the fact card produced by IWR, and compare it to what we've got in Texas, it's well below the national average.

So I know that Texas is not in a position where it really needs to lower the maintenance dredging cost or the channel restrictions.

From my experience, there have been very few channel restrictions that have resulted from contractor performance. They have generally been caused by insufficient congressional approvals or delay in advertising and awarding the contracts, and then of course unanticipated events like hurricanes. So historically, the Corps project delivery teams have managed these individual channels, and it looks like we're kind of taking that management and shifting it to the contractors, which is going to have a single point of failure, I think. And that's my belief. I think the Corps actively managing the timing and the dredging requirements, rather than waiting for the channels to become restricted, is what they've done in the past and probably what's needed to keep those channels unrestricted.

And the consolidation: although I think there's some benefit in some limited consolidation, consolidating it to this point really is 180° from several of the FAR clauses, you know, 7.107-2, 7.107-3, 7.107-4, and 19.202-1.

I mean, it basically says do not consolidate, especially when there's different dredging equipment that could do it. Maybe consolidate to the dredging equipment, but don't consolidate it past that.

I think that, overall, we're potentially sacrificing long term competition for short term, maybe Corps administrative convenience. I think it's going to be really easy for the Corps to manage a single contract by putting the onus on the contractors.

But what's going to inevitably happen?

If we give this to one single contractor or a group of contractors, someone else is going to go out of business, and then it might be two, three, four years before you see the impact.

But there's going to be a huge spike in dredging costs if we don't keep the competition as robust as it is right now, as we're seeing it right now.

So I guess, just in closing, I would say, you know, I know that it's a pilot study, and I know that in a pilot study there are some objectives.

We got a couple.

One question I would ask is, what analysis has the Corps done to demonstrate that this approach will actually achieve those objectives?

Or has there been anything done on that? Over.

Dylan Davis 10:42 Yeah. So, I mean, as far as any kind of analysis specifically for this effort, I would say no, that has not been done.

But it is basically trying to play off of successes in other parts of the Corps' missions, namely the military side and the work with design build contracts, and then see if there is, again, some type of shared benefit that we can gain through the dredging side of the house, the civil works dredging side of the house, that is comparable to the benefits they've seen on that side. But a specific evaluation for this, no.

Ryan Hodgkinson 11:36 I want to say, I think Mr. Frabotta just calmly and clearly said everything I've been thinking, or more screaming inside my own head.

I appreciate that very much, Chris.

Chris Frabotta 11:52 Yes, Sir.

And really just one last statement.

I think that we really need to distinguish between maybe making the Corps' contracting process more efficient and actually making the dredging program itself more efficient.

They're not necessarily the same thing. You know, historically, contractors have not been the primary cause of channel restrictions.

There have been very few instances of underperforming contractors that just don't get out there and get it done.

The funding, the acquisition timing, and maybe…