Feds at Work: Leading public works projects

Oversaw the $2.1 billion deepening of navigation channels for the Port of New York and New Jersey

During a three-decade career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Joseph Seebode has played a major leadership role on important public works projects that improved public safety, navigation, the economy and the environment.

Joseph Seebode (Photo by Aaron Clamage)

As the deputy district engineer, Seebode oversaw recovery efforts from Hurricane Sandy’s devastation in 2012, and managed the recently completed, $2.1 billion dredging project to deepen the waterways that feed into the Port of New York and New Jersey. He also was the primary Army Corps leader coordinating emergency response and infrastructure rebuilding with New York City following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“Joe Seebode’s oversight and management — his steady hand — has been crucial to the success we have had with all of these projects,” said Col. David Caldwell, the Corps’ New York District commander.

“To me, he is the epitome of what a public servant is. He is dedicated, committed and hardworking, and has no political agenda of any kind.” ~ Joseph Westphal

Seebode has had to keep many balls in the air, and work closely with states and cities affected by these projects as well as federal agencies, environmental and civic groups, and Congress.

“He is someone people trust and respect,” said Joseph Westphal, Army undersecretary from 2009 to 2012 who headed the Army Corps when the port project was underway. “To me, he is the epitome of what a public servant is. He is dedicated, committed and hardworking, and has no political agenda of any kind.”

The decade-long port project, the Corps’ largest channel-deepening effort, was completed on schedule in 2016, under budget by $800 million. The complex initiative was made more demanding by a goal to complete it simultaneously with the widening and deepening of the Panama Canal so large container ships could pull into the New York and New Jersey ports.

The shipping lanes — 18 feet deep 400 years ago when Henry Hudson first sailed along them, and 35 feet deep after 20th-century dredging — are now 50-feet deep in the major navigation channels feeding into the bistate area’s large container ports.

Seebode worked closely with environmental groups and public agencies. The project reused 100 percent of the 54 million cubic yards of dredged material for environmental and economic purposes.

“His ability to get the environmental community to support what we were doing was key to our ability to get this project done.” ~ Richard Larrabee

The challenge, Seebode said, was that “a lot of the material we were dredging was contaminated, so we had to come up with a strategy to remove it without affecting the greater environment,” while also finding ways to use it to benefit society.

If the amount of material removed was put on a football field, it would have reached five miles high, he said. His teams used it to create wetland islands and fishing reefs; stabilize shorelines and close landfills; and provide material under parking lots.

Seebode and his team sought to be transparent with the public and mitigate the harbor-deepening project’s effects on local citizens. They held public forums, visited homes prior to blasting and required horns to communicate when blasts would happen.

Hurricane Sandy struck while the port project was underway. Seebode left the dredging project temporarily to work with the New York mayor, the governors of New York and New Jersey, and major agency heads, to lead a $3.2 billion effort to repair, restore and increase coastal resilience in the bistate region.

Earlier in his career, the Corps selected Seebode to lead a response team after the 9/11 terrorist attack, working directly with New York City to help with the recovery.

Although he had been in the World Trade Center the day of the attack and escaped after the second plane hit, he was back the next day to manage search and rescue teams, debris-management groups and emergency dredging operations. He was awarded the Army Corps of Engineers’ Civilian of the Year Award for his actions.

“We have a lot of regulation and administrative hurdles, but my focus is always to move the approval process forward as quickly as possible so we can get the money to the street and break ground,” Seebode said. “That is ultimately what the American people are paying us to do — to build infrastructure that is going to have value to our soldiers and our citizens.”

Joseph Seebode is a finalist for a 2017 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal, or Sammies. Each year, the Partnership for Public Service honors federal employees whose remarkable accomplishments make our government and our nation stronger.

For the third year, we will also present the annual “People’s Choice” award. Please vote for the person or team you find most inspiring. (Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. EST on September 15, 2017.)

Partnership for Public Service

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The Partnership works to revitalize our federal government by inspiring a new generation to serve and by transforming the way government works.

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