Army Awards HME Construction $11.5 Million Portland Dredging Contract

The Vancouver, Washington, firm received a firm-fixed-price deal for clamshell maintenance dredging and survey work in Portland, Oregon, with completion set for March 27, 2027.

First Published: July 28, 2026, 1:31 PM ET

VANCOUVER, WASHINGTON — HME Construction Inc., a Vancouver, Washington, marine contractor, received an $11.5 million Army deal to dredge and survey waterways in Portland, Oregon.

The firm-fixed-price contract carries a total cumulative face value of $13 million, with $11.5 million in fiscal 2026 civil operation and maintenance funds obligated at the award, as announced on war.gov. The award covers clamshell maintenance dredging plus hydrographic and land survey work.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland district, serves as the contracting activity under identifier W9127N-26-C-A028, according to war.gov. The Corps solicited bids over the internet and received one. Crews will perform the work in Portland, Oregon, with an estimated completion date of March 27, 2027.

Maintenance dredging keeps commercial channels and harbors deep enough for barges, cargo ships and other vessels to move safely. Clamshell dredging uses a hinged bucket lowered from a crane to scoop sediment from the riverbed, a method suited to confined or urban waterways. The hydrographic and land survey work measures channel depth and shoreline conditions to guide where crews remove material.

The stakes reach beyond a single contractor. Shippers, port operators and terminal owners along the lower Columbia and Willamette rivers depend on cleared channels to keep freight moving. A single bidder means the Corps had limited competition on price, a recurring feature of specialized dredging work where few firms own the equipment. HME Construction stands to gain steady federal revenue, while regional commerce benefits from navigable channels.

The Portland district manages a network of federal navigation channels, locks and dams across the Pacific Northwest and awards maintenance dredging contracts on a routine schedule, according to war.gov. Federal dredging spending nationwide runs into the billions of dollars each year, and awards of this size rank as modest within that broader program.

For the average reader, the work rarely draws attention, yet it shapes the price and reliability of goods that travel by water. Grain, lumber and imported goods that pass through Columbia River terminals rely on channels that stay open, and clogged waterways can raise shipping costs that ripple into consumer prices.

This has happened before. The Army Corps awards maintenance dredging contracts across its districts year after year to counter the sediment that rivers and tides deposit in shipping lanes. Such work continues rather than ending, because channels silt in again within months of a clearing.

The Army Corps of Engineers, Portland district, will oversee performance and any follow-on decisions on the contract. A date for further action has not been announced, and the current award runs through its estimated completion on March 27, 2027.

Dredging the Columbia River system is older than the contracts that fund it today. Congress authorized channel improvements on the lower Columbia in the 19th century, and the Army Corps deepened the entrance across the treacherous Columbia Bar. Mariners once called that stretch the Graveyard of the Pacific for the hundreds of vessels lost there. The jetties and dredging that followed opened Portland to oceangoing trade and turned a hazardous river mouth into a working port that still underwrites the region’s shipping economy.