Dubuque Barge And Fleeting Service Co

Dubuque Barge And Fleeting Service Co, doing business as Newt Marine Service, is a small business prime contractor based in Dubuque, Iowa that delivers mechanical dredging, bank stabilization, navigation structure repair, and marine vessel maintenance to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers across Midwestern and Great Lakes waterway systems. The vendor operates exclusively as a prime contractor (100% of awards) and competes predominantly under total small business set-asides — 187 recent awards fall under NAICS 237990 (Other Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction), with placement work, revetment construction, stone dike repair, and habitat restoration concentrated in the Missouri River, Mississippi River, Illinois River, and Great Lakes corridors.

Customer concentration is near-total with the Army Corps of Engineers. The top five customer organizations by award count account for 91% of recent awards, with the Corps' general contracting authority and Engineering Districts dominating the portfolio: the St. Paul District (98 awards, $56.1 million combined potential value), the Corps' general contracting authority (55 awards, $457.3 million), and the Omaha District (30 awards, $360.8 million) lead by volume. The dollars-driven ranking surfaces a divergence: the general contracting authority and Omaha District anchor the largest IDC vehicles by ceiling value, while the Army proper (not district-specific) sits third by potential value at $180 million, driven by a single Great Lakes Dredging MATOC awarded December 2025. One additional customer (Bureau of Reclamation) appears for a $503.9 thousand vessel support order on the Glen Canyon Slough project in Arizona in early 2025; all other awards flow to Corps entities.

The vendor holds eight active indefinite delivery contracts with the Army Corps of Engineers totaling approximately $361 million in combined ceiling value. Recent IDC awards include a $25 million single-award IDIQ for mechanical dredging of the Mississippi River Basin (awarded January 2026, Rock Island District, through 2030), a $180 million multiple-award Great Lakes Dredging MATOC (awarded December 2025, Total Small Business set-aside, through 2030), a $50 million operations and maintenance dredging MATOC (awarded September 2025, St. Louis District, Total Small Business set-aside), a $49 million BSNP River Structure Maintenance IDIQ (awarded August 2025, Omaha District, Total Small Business), a $7 million vessel repair and maintenance Basic Ordering Agreement (awarded September 2025, no set-aside), and a $25 million Illinois Waterway mechanical dredging IDIQ (single-award, Total Small Business, through 2028). Two additional vehicles—a $99.5 million Missouri River BSNP construction services MATOC (multiple-award, Total Small Business, through September 2026) and a $49 million Missouri River BSNP MATOC (July 2023, multiple-award, Total Small Business, through July 2028)—carry older award dates but remain active. The top vehicle by task-order count is Indefinite Delivery Contract W912ES08D0001 with 76 task orders and $9.6 million combined potential value, a Missouri River construction vehicle.

Recent definitive contracts and delivery orders exemplify the vendor's core capability delivery. Representative work includes a $25.4 million Garrison Spillway Approach Dredge definitive contract awarded June 2025 (Omaha District, Total Small Business set-aside, through April 2028) for sediment remediation and dike armoring at Garrison Dam in North Dakota; a $7.69 million Mississippi River Basin and Ecosystem Sustainability Program mooring cell construction delivery order (September 2024, Small Business set-aside, Lock and Dam 22 in Peoria, Illinois); a $13.2 million McGregor Lake HREP Stage 2 construction contract (October 2022, Total Small Business set-aside, through September 2025) for floodplain forest and earthen berm construction near Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin; and a $7.84 million Lake Shelbyville dredging contract (September 2024, Total Small Business set-aside, through May 2026). The vendor also executes smaller discretionary work including drydock repairs of Corps vessels ($697.4 thousand for barges 857, 850, and 913, November 2025), specialized equipment procurement ($652 thousand for handi-flats with motors, June 2026), and minimum-guarantee task orders that establish annual baseline work on multiple MATOCs (ranging from $500 to $5 thousand).

Activity has grown modestly year over year, with five awards in 2022 accelerating to eleven in 2025 and five visible in early 2026. Five awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, carrying a combined potential value of $47.3 million and representing near-term recompete exposure — most material among these is a $25.4 million Garrison Spillway contract and a $13.2 million McGregor Lake project. The vendor's combined potential value across all 229 awards stands at $1.26 billion, with obligated dollars at $359.9 million (28% of combined potential), indicating a significant backlog of task order work against standing IDVs. Work is performed across Midwestern and Great Lakes locations, including Dubuque and Fountain City, Wisconsin (home base for fleeting and barge maintenance), multiple Missouri River mile-segments (Omaha District footprint), Mississippi River lock and dam sites (St. Paul and Rock Island Districts), and Great Lakes region ports (Detroit District).

diverse marine construction, leasing. dredging, levy repair, rock placement, pile driving, dock construction, dry dock, harbor service, specialty towing, inland waterway tug service, deck barge rental, sectional barge, spud barge, tug boat