Stanford [00:00:13]:
When we decided on the title for this podcast, we decided to abbreviate RSM to avoid a 17 syllable podcast name. When I workshopped the regional sentiment management River Mechanics podcast with a couple of people, the feedback wasn't great. But the RSM acronym in this podcast title is the reason this whole project exists. RSM, or regional segment management, is a core of engineers, operational research and educational program. But regional sediment management is more than a program, it's a philosophy. RSM is a way of thinking about sediment more holistically. And managing it on appropriate spatial scales. You know, the scales at which sediment actually affects ecosystems and infrastructure, not the arbitrary scales of political or project boundaries. So we're shifting our focus for one episode from the details of river mechanics to the first part of that podcast title. Because I really think that the principles of regional sediment management. Can apply to most river engineering restoration projects. To introduce RSM, we talked to Doctor Katie Boucher, who led the program for several years. And before that, really distinguished herself as a creative RSM researcher and effective practitioner of RSM principles. Doctor Boucher is a coastal scientist, and her work focuses on sediment management in our coastal waterways. So in addition to zooming out the scale, this episode is also going to move downstream. As you'll hear in our conversation, RSM started in our coastal waterways. And then the kind of the very nature of its regional emphasis expanded its focus upstream to where I tend to work. But I've learned a lot about coastal sediment from Katy in that coastal community. And riverine sediment ends up in coastal waterways. It's all connected. So even if you're a river person, I think you'll find some helpful insights in this episode. One note, this podcast has grown more than I expected. And I recognize that a lot of people listening are not in the Corps of Engineers. And that's fantastic. But we do talk about the details of the RSM R and D program in the last ten minutes or so of this episode. And that is pretty core specific. So if you're a corps of engineers, you do not want to miss out on that. But if you're not, you may find it interesting to hear about a particularly well run R and D program. But it's also the final topic, so you won't miss anything else if you kind of, you know, find your way to another podcast. I'm Stanford Gibson, the sediment transport specialist at HEC. And on this self titled episode of the RSM River Mechanics podcast, a conversation with Doctor Katie Boucher. Katie Boucher, welcome to the podcast. Let's just start out with this question. What was the world like before regional sediment management? How were we managing our coastlines before we were really thinking about regional sediment management.

Katie [00:02:50]:
Well, before RSM or regional sediment management, we were really looking at sediment as a nuisance. So sediment was something that was stuck in our channels that we just needed to get rid of to maintain navigation. But as we started to think about our systems in a more broad sense, we realized, well, that sediment really has a lot of value. Taking sediment out of the channel and disposing of it offshore or upland leads to a net loss to our sediment budgets. And so that can lead to erosion downdrift. Another thing that I noticed a lot before we were thinking about regional settlement management and sort of beneficial use in general was that a lot of our coastal solutions were really hard structures. So things like seawalls and breakwaters and jetties. And, you know, with the advent of RSM and beneficial use, we've brought in the idea of soft engineering structures. So things like beach nourishment or nearshore placement of dredged material. And so there's a lot of benefit to using these soft engineering structures because not only does it help to protect our shorelines, it actually keeps sediment in the system and sort of helps to maintain that sediment budget. So overall, just sort of prior to RSM, just sort of a lack of large scale thinking and consideration of how the region works at a bigger scale than a project by project basis.

Stanford [00:04:14]:
So, first of all, we're thinking on a bigger scale. It's not just like where we're dredging and where we're dumping it. Sediment's not just a bad thing that we want to get rid of, it's actually a resource that we need to manage.

Katie [00:04:24]:
Right.

Stanford [00:04:25]:
And then. But then third, this distinction between hard and soft structures, this is actually something that I'm only kind of vaguely familiar with. Is a soft structure just something that you build or place intending for it not to be permanent, but for it to become part of the process?

Katie [00:04:39]:
Yeah, essentially, you know, it is sort of what it sounds like soft structure in that it's usually made of sediment. So it is intended to sort of work with nature, engineer with nature and work with the system and sort of integrate itself into the system. And that way, by it not being a static structure, it helps to sort of lessen the chances of erosion caused by the structure itself, like we sometimes see with jetties and breakwaters and seawalls. And then also sort of, as you mentioned, no longer looking at a project by project basis when we're thinking about our projects. So that includes how we move our sediment. So if I'm dredging my navigation channel, maybe I have a flood risk management project nearby that needs some sediment. But also things like what does our dredge schedule optimization look like? How can we connect projects together to make ourselves more efficient and maybe save some money that way?

Stanford [00:05:35]:
I guess I always think of it as. Cause my background is sediment continuity and modeling. And that I always think of it as, oh, we wanna think about the sediment we take out here, how it's gonna affect down there. But then there's an operational scale. You only have so many dredges. We only have so many resources. How are we gonna deploy them regionally in order to get the maximum benefit out of just the operational resources.

Katie [00:05:55]:
Exactly. And for those types of questions, we actually work closely with some of our more dredging focused research programs here at Erdic.

Stanford [00:06:03]:
Great. So how did it begin? How did RSM thinking. And then the program begin?

Katie [00:06:09]:
Yeah, so in, I would say probably the early to mid nineties in the mobile district generally is how it began. So sort of a grassroots effort. You know, the lily crops, Jeff and Linda Lillycrops. So they were at the mobile district. So they were the former RSM program manager and navigation technical director. Now retired. They, along with their team, kind of started thinking, well, hey, what if we start linking these projects together? What if we start finding ways to efficiently move this sediment and make it more useful? You know, there's got to be better ways to manage our sediment than throwing it away.

Stanford [00:06:43]:
Right?

Katie [00:06:44]:
And so they started piecing projects together and created things like large sediment budgets to really understand the region better, understand where they could improve from there. It sort of started catching on. At the core we have. They're called FACAS. And now. Now I'm going to acronym myself into a place that I can.

Stanford [00:07:03]:
I don't even know what a FACA.

Katie [00:07:04]:
Is, but this particular FACA is the co coastal engineering research board. Essentially, it's three green suitors and the president, which is also a green suitor. And three civilians, actually, that work outside the corps. And they help direct our research and they help in the coastal realm and they help tell us, okay, this is what you guys need to be focusing on at the coastal and hydraulics lab. So in 1999, they actually said, you need to start focusing on regional sediment management.

Stanford [00:07:32]:
So it kind of came from the top. Yeah, it started grassroots, mobile, the lily crops. But it got to the top pretty quick.

Katie [00:07:39]:
Quick, yeah. Yeah. And I would be remiss. I you know, I. I know that there are more than just the lily crops and, and I know that win Fuller was, was highly involved in that and others in the mobile district. So then they established the regional settlement management program. And it's a little over 20 years old at this point. So it's got some staying power. And I think it's just only really gained in popularity over the years as people see the value of, of RSM.

Stanford [00:08:06]:
So let's just talk a little bit about what it is. What are the fundamental principles of regional sediment management?

Katie [00:08:13]:
Sure. Well, at its core it's a systems approach to how we manage our projects and how we look at more efficient and effective ways of using our sediment. The program itself actually started out in the coastal realm, but as we grew, we added estuaries and rivers as well, and reservoirs. Looking at our projects in this sort of regional scale allows us to create healthier, more sustainable and resilient projects. So some of the fundamental principles are things like we recognize sediment as a resource. So we've gotten rid of that mindset that sediment's a nuisance that needs to be disposed of. We started realizing that sediment really has a value to it. And we want to work across projects and business lines to create solutions. So again, we don't want to look at project specific issues. We want to look at how these projects might link together also how regional processes might impact our projects and then how our projects might impact the region. And then in the core, you know, I'm sure you've heard this, Stanford, but we often work in stovepipes. We work only in our business lines. There's a push, a movement to sort of start to think about the benefits of RSM across business lines. So I mentioned earlier, you know, for example, if you're dredging a navigation channel, that's a navigation project. But if you have a nearby flood risk management beach nourishment project that can benefit from it, maybe we can work across those business lines to really get these projects done.

Stanford [00:09:36]:
I think that's a completely different scale. Because it's one thing to say we're going to manage sediment regionally from upstream to downstream, from watershed to gulf. But it's another thing to say the flood risk management side of the house and the navigation side of the house are going to cooperate in sediment management. Because I do think that the flood risk management folks think that we're a flood risk management organization. Right? Yeah.

Katie [00:09:59]:
And the Nav folks think we're a.

Stanford [00:10:00]:
Navigation and then the restoration people think we're a restoration organization. And the truth is that a lot of times one of those business lines will find local sediment a nuisance where the other one really needs more segment for remission. I think often it's flood risk management as having a deposition problem. But downstream, you know, the ecosystem folks just need more sediment to build their sandbars or something like that. And to not only look at it regionally, but across business lines outside of the core. That might seem like common sense, but the way our organization has grown up, that takes a sort of national effort.

Katie [00:10:39]:
Yes, absolutely. Because, you know, we often talk about the color of money.

Stanford [00:10:43]:
Yeah, that's right.

Katie [00:10:44]:
And so it makes it, it makes it difficult bending a little bit more in navigation, for example.

Stanford [00:10:49]:
Right.

Katie [00:10:50]:
But to the benefit of FRM. Yeah, quite have the process yet to really account for that. And so that's something that as an organization, I think we're heading in that direction, but we're still learning and we're still growing when it comes to that. So. But I think that that really is some of the basis of how we need to start thinking and operating in the core. It'll take some time to work through some of that just because that's not how we do business at the moment.

Stanford [00:11:16]:
So any other fundamental RSM principles you want to talk about?

Katie [00:11:20]:
Yeah, so I mean, again, it's really all about efficiency. So improving operations efficiency. We talked a little bit already about, you know, looking at your dred schedule and figuring out if you can link projects together. We started looking, and again, this isn't really specific to the RSM program, but it certainly relates to it. But we've started looking at things like regional contracts for dredging where we link projects together and do one contract for several harbors or channels, but then also efficiency and just sort of how sediment moves through a system. So in the natural exchange of sediments. So things like sediment bypassing around inlets or dams in the inland case. And then we are an R and D program. We're technically also a tech transfer program. So we do look at things like tools and technologies and enhancing those things. But we often, we work with other R and D programs at Erdic to create the tools. But most of the time we actually just help those R and D programs by applying them to some of our case study. Yeah, that's right.

Stanford [00:12:20]:
And that's how I've often been involved is we take the tools that we've developed in say, flood and coastal and then we apply them really practically at the district level. Or you have launched the RSMU program. And so we've taught a bunch of classes. And this is an RSM product where we're a tech transfer product, where we're trying to get, you know, some of these ideas out to the districts.

Katie [00:12:38]:
Right. And then lastly, I would just say that, you know, the communication part of this program and you kind of touched on a little bit mentioning our RSMU workshops. So we do a lot of things like workshops and stakeholder meetings, because when we go to try to do RSM projects, oftentimes they're not the projects that are already authorized.

Stanford [00:12:56]:
Yeah.

Katie [00:12:56]:
Right. And so it requires a lot of trust building amongst agencies that are involved and building ideas of different solutions. And so that really is one of the key components to RSM is that communication and collaboration piece of it.

Stanford [00:13:10]:
A lot of times the obstacle to managing sediment regionally isn't technical. It's not. Everyone knows it's a good idea, but it's cultural. And so there's some storytelling that has to go on there. And I think RSM does a lot of that.

Katie [00:13:23]:
Right, right. And, you know, and I'm a huge proponent of starting interagency work groups. Or, I mean, this week alone, I was involved in two separate efforts where districts had started building interagency working groups or beneficial use working groups. And I just think that those efforts are so important because it actually starts to build that trust and build those relationships before you even get to the point that you want to do these projects. So that by the time you say, hey, let's try something different and something maybe more efficient, you've already built that. The relationship that you can kind of talk to your colleague at NOAA or something and really get these projects done.

Stanford [00:14:01]:
Great. Can we do one definition? Because this is a phrase that I only know because I've been hanging out with you and your friends lately. So what is beneficial reuse? The definition is kind of embedded in it, but can you just tell us a little bit about what that is? Because I think it's a phrase we're going to use pretty often.

Katie [00:14:18]:
Yeah. So beneficial use of dredge material. Beneficial reuse is almost exactly what it sounds like. It's using the dredge material in a way that provides some benefit. You know, I joke that sometimes that's really in the eye of the beholder. So, you know, I'm a coastal geologist by training, so that's where a lot of my background comes from. But the coasts are sediment starved, and so we are constantly at coastlines thinking, okay, where can I use every single grain of sand that's going to give me some benefit, provide some value for us. In the inland side, it's more like, okay, we've got way too much sediment. Where are we going to put it all? Move it out. Your benefit is somehow is finding ways to clear out the channel. Beneficial use really runs the gamut in terms of types of beneficial use. So it can be things like along the coastline, we think of things like beach nourishments and habitat creation. On the inland side, we think of things like land creation. And actually use of the material for construction purposes and things along those lines. So how to get the thing, how to get the material out of the channel, but then also provide benefits somewhere else. You know, at the core, we have all these engineer manuals, engineer circulars, technical reports. There is an engineer manual that was written in 2015 called Dredging and Dredge Material Management. And in there, it specifically outlines what beneficial use is and what types of beneficial use exist. So if you're really interested in the technical details of it, certainly feel free to check that out. Maybe you can provide the reference of the EM on there. I don't rumor it off the top of my head.

Stanford [00:15:57]:
We'll do that. Okay, great. So let's tell the RSM story here. Do you have an iconic project where regional sediment management went really well?

Katie [00:16:06]:
Yeah, I would say by far and away the mobile bay project. So I'm going to step back for just 1 second and kind of talk about the RSM process a little bit. Because I think that this project really embodies all of the pieces of that process. So when we talk about the RSM process, it's about a four step process. But we start by understanding the region. And that's sort of. We're just looking at big picture thoughts, big picture processes. So generally you start by making like a large sediment budget. And that tells you what your sediment sources are. Your sediment sinks and your sediment transport pathways.

Stanford [00:16:41]:
Interestingly, that's also my advice for like anyone building any sort of sediment like model or doing a project is you got to start out with the budget. David Benhard talked about this and what are the sources, pathways and sinks.

Katie [00:16:54]:
Yep. It's your first cut at what's going on in your region. And it also sort of helps to guide you to figure out where. Where you need to go. It helps you gather information, figure out where some of your knowledge gaps are. Figure out what data you might need to go and collect. And then there you might hone in onto a specific project area and you'll look at. Okay, now we've decided you know, we want to look at this inlet or this reservoir, and then we can say, okay, let's think about different alternatives that we can look at and, and evaluate. And then we can use those tools and technologies we talked about earlier to evaluate these different alternatives.

Stanford [00:17:30]:
So this is a common experience. Right. Is you try to build your sediment budget and you have sources, like what? The sediment is coming in and you have your sinks and you add them all up and they should be zero.

Katie [00:17:41]:
Right, right. But they are not, never zero.

Stanford [00:17:45]:
And usually there are some processes that are well defined that you have good numbers on. And there are other processes that you can take a swag at. But then there are just like one or two just completely uncertain sources or sinks. And so the second step of the RSM process is to kind of double click on those and to try to, like, try to actually get some sort of estimate of what those are using some of the tools that the R and D program has developed.

Katie [00:18:12]:
Absolutely. You know, and it really does help to answer those. When you have a residual, you're obviously, your budget's not balanced. You got to look at what's going on somewhere and answer those questions somehow. And so a lot of that second step involves modeling. So more robust modeling, probably the modeling that you do. Or garabagary. Right. Yeah, exactly. From there. And the third step, we sort of see if we can find these individual projects and kind of piece them together into a regional strategy. So not, we don't just have, like, one specific place to put material now we have several places or several projects that link together. And then hopefully, we can get to the point where we can actually construct these projects and then monitor them and learn from them and adaptively manage them to make them better for the future.

Stanford [00:18:53]:
And when you say construct the projects, like that verb means something different because a lot of these projects are soft, which means they're recurring. Right. In some places, it's. Constructing a project is more changing the management plan than actually putting something in the ground.

Katie [00:19:10]:
Right, right. So we're talking about placement of material in, say, a thin layer placement or a beach nourishment or, you know, whatever it may be. In Mobile Bay, they were in a situation where the word of the Water Resources Development act of 1986, which is how Congress tells us what to do here at the core, it basically dictated that the material within Mobile Bay be dredged and taken offshore and disposed of.

Stanford [00:19:37]:
Oh, wow.

Katie [00:19:37]:
Yeah.

Stanford [00:19:38]:
So that is not sediment as a resource.

Katie [00:19:40]:
Yeah, definitely not. Definitely not. And what it did is it actually tripled their dredging cost because it increased their haul distance because they had to haul it offshore. They only could use hopper dredges, really, which is the type of dredge where it sort of vacuums the material and puts it inside the boat and then dumps it.

Stanford [00:19:57]:
And so you're not only not using the sediment as a resource, but you've tripled the costs by doing that.

Katie [00:20:03]:
Exactly. And maybe even worse, in sort of a life cycle way, you're actually now taking sediment out of the system and thereby degrading the bay.

Stanford [00:20:13]:
That's right.

Katie [00:20:13]:
And the habitat around the bay. And that can have huge negative impacts. We think about it often. I'm not a biologist, I'm a geologist. So I call them all critters. But we think about it in terms of critters. You know, there's no place for the critters to go. And we have a degraded, you know, marshy areas. But maybe even more importantly from an infrastructure standpoint, is that all of that area, all the wetlands, all the marshes, all of that provides a level of storm protection that I don't think we often think about or give credit to when we think about coastal management at least. So then in 2012, I believe a storm ran through, but they were given a one time authorization to try in bay placement of dredge material at Mobile Bay.

Stanford [00:20:57]:
Just describe that a little bit. In layer placement in bay just means you're not taking it all the way out. You're bringing it in and you're using it either to build up habitat or barriers to storm surge. You just. You're putting it much closer.

Katie [00:21:10]:
Exactly. So we're not taking it all the way offshore. We're placing it essentially back into its same environment, but we're taking it out of the channel itself so we can get our huge cargo ships through. And so again, when you think back to a sediment budget, you're now keeping that material within your system a balanced budget, if you will. Because we were given this one time opportunity. We worked the mobile district, said, hey, let's take this opportunity to learn about how this new placement area behaves. And so we, we ertic worked with them to monitor. We did a lot of sediment sampling. We did a lot of particle track tracking modeling. We essentially figured out that even though we were placing the material in the bay, it wasn't coming back in the channel. And it was. And it was in fact, you know, helping to restore some of that degraded marshy area and also reducing the amount of haul distance for the dredge so we don't have to go all the way offshore anymore. And that that decreases the cost. And so after showing that that was successful in Worda 2014, they ended up reversing the word of 86. Yeah. So now we're able to place material within Mobile Bay, and that actually leads to an annual value of about $6 million.

Stanford [00:22:27]:
Wow.

Katie [00:22:27]:
Yeah. And so the nice thing about that is the way we do our navigation budget is, you know, we have a finite amount of budget, and so we line up, we prioritize all of our channels.

Stanford [00:22:38]:
Right.

Katie [00:22:38]:
And wherever that budget falls on the priority, that's where we. That's the end mark of where we dredge.

Stanford [00:22:44]:
I don't think this is underrated. I didn't know this. I don't think most people know this is. We don't get to all the channels. No, we get to the channels that we prioritize them, and then we look how far the money goes. And then we're done.

Katie [00:22:57]:
Yep. Exactly. And so having that additional $6 million allows us to go further down that priority list. Now we can start dredging channels that are considered low use channels and not as high a priority, but have been.

Stanford [00:23:09]:
Neglected for a while because they weren't on the right part of the list.

Katie [00:23:12]:
Exactly. You know, and for our channels, it's a lot of it has to do with the economy. So we prioritize channels that have a lot of cargo ships that roll through. Being able to find value elsewhere by doing things better, more efficiently, allows us to dredge more. And so then they also looked for different other types of beneficial use within the bay. So things like filling oyster holes, creating bird islands.

Stanford [00:23:38]:
I don't know what an oyster hole is.

Katie [00:23:39]:
So I believe what it is is that when we mine for oysters, it leaves, like, literally, like a whole. Yeah. Just a giant hole. And that can have a negative impact.

Stanford [00:23:49]:
I actually didn't know mining for oysters was a thing.

Katie [00:23:51]:
You know, the things you learn in these jobs. But we fill some of those holes.

Stanford [00:23:57]:
Which just seems like common sense.

Katie [00:23:59]:
Yeah, yeah. And then also things like bird island creation. Of course, some of these things have multiple benefits. You know, in the example of the Bird island creation, you're creating habitat, and you're also saving money by keeping the.

Stanford [00:24:11]:
Material, which is an example of what you're talking about, where you're not just looking at it regionally, but you're also looking across business lines, because the dredge people and the Bird island people, those are different people in our organization.

Katie [00:24:23]:
Very different people.

Stanford [00:24:24]:
Yeah, but there's a total savings, and there's a benefit across business lines.

Katie [00:24:30]:
Yep, absolutely. And so when they pieced together those smaller projects that created their regional RSM strategy, and then, of course, they were able to construct. So it's a really great project that hits on all of the pieces of the RSM process and then shows you that the benefits of, in some cases, monetary benefits of considering how to make things more efficient.

Stanford [00:24:53]:
Okay, so that's fantastic. But it's also anecdotal. Right. And so I guess the next question is, does RSM scale? We've been at this for 20 years. You've been at the head of it for a while. How does RSM scale, like, can you give us some stats on how this is kind of working its way into the Corps of Engineers?

Katie [00:25:10]:
We have funded over 250 projects since the program started in the late nineties, early two thousands. And that's really led to a lot of cost savings. The mobile district project is one example, but there are other examples where maybe smaller cost savings, but cost savings nonetheless. We're placing material closer, so we have about $100,000 of cost savings annually. And still, again, that's right. That's helpful, you know, and we can use it elsewhere. We've also seen growth in the number of districts that are participating in the program. So again, we started in mobile, but now we are 29 or so districts strong, both coastal and inland. And so now we're really starting to see some of the benefits. And then also we're seeing more and more discussion about it at the highest levels in the core and even outside of the core. So a lot of our stakeholders are really itching for us to use our material beneficially, and a lot of them are hoping to work with us to receive some of that material beneficially. And we're seeing a lot more direction from Congress through those wordas to start considering benefits and even incorporating that into how we make our calculations as to whether or not a project is economically justified.

Stanford [00:26:23]:
Yeah, so I came into the core through the flood risk management and then ecosystem and then reservoir management. Those are the business lines that I've worked in. I didn't actually really get involved in navigation until I started working with you guys in RSM. And it was astounding to me how much we spend on dredging. Can you just, like, give us a little bit. We are a navigation organization. We're a dredging organization. Can you just give us a little bit of, like, the order of magnitude and the scale of sediment we move in dollars we spend on that.

Katie [00:26:54]:
I think that our president's budget for USAFE civil works is somewhere around six to $7 billion annually. And our navigation o and m maintenance dredging alone is on the order of one to $2 billion of our budget.

Stanford [00:27:09]:
Like a quarter.

Katie [00:27:11]:
Yeah.

Stanford [00:27:13]:
Sentiment's heavy. I realized this is not profound, but it's one of the things I've learned. Sediment's really heavy and it's expensive to move it.

Katie [00:27:19]:
And, you know, that cost of moving it is just increasing with time. But our budgets aren't really increasing at the same rate. That's really where RSM becomes extremely important.

Stanford [00:27:29]:
Yeah.

Katie [00:27:30]:
In addition to the fact that a lot of our projects are sediment starved. You know, the reason we have to do beach nourishment is because of all this erosion that we're seeing. Whether it be because of, you know, any engineering that's been around or like man made structures or because of a really bad storm that rolls through. You know, we need to. We need to start thinking about our sediment and how we manage it in a better way.

Stanford [00:27:51]:
One of the things I like to say is dredging costs are kind of like healthcare in college. Right. These are the three costs that are increasing faster than, like, inflation in a significant way. So that the more time that progresses, the less your dollar can buy. And so it makes being clever about how we do this and being thoughtful about how we do this even more important because our dollar is going to be less and less useful going forward.

Katie [00:28:17]:
Just things like fuel costs. I think fuel costs might be like the thing that really increases.

Stanford [00:28:22]:
The one thing that the core spends the most on is dressed.

Katie [00:28:25]:
It might be, you know, don't quote me on it, but it might be. But, you know, so those are all the things that we really have to take into consideration.

Stanford [00:28:32]:
Yeah. Okay. So RSM started as a coastal program, and you're a coastal geologist. So you've been involved with it for a while. But a few years ago, you and Linda really made a move to move inland. So let's involve the inland districts. You know, there's a number of core of engineering districts that have no coast. The RSM program really moved inland and reached out to those inland riverine and reservoir districts. What was the thinking behind that?

Katie [00:28:57]:
If you really want to think about a regional approach and how sediment moves through our watersheds, you can't ignore rivers and reservoirs. Right. Especially because with all the building of dams snagging up our sediment along our rivers, that is what leads to a lot of the erosion at our coastlines. I'm a geologist once again. So I think about back in the. Back in you know, millions of years ago where we had the appalachian mountains, and that was the source that created the coastal plain in the southeast. And so when you think about it in terms of that scale, you understand it's a no brainer that we really need to start talking to our inland experts on how we manage better. And a lot of times our source at the coastline is a nearby river. So if we're not thinking about how sediment's making its way through that system to the coastline, we're missing a big piece of the puzzle. And then also, you know, better than I do, but reservoirs are a big issue for us, and especially the fact that they're sort of filling with sediment and how do we manage that? And so that's another place where we were thinking, well, that certainly fits within the RSM umbrella. And then, you know, as I've learned more and more about some of the inland considerations with RSM and just sort of inland sciences in general, it seems like you guys were already sort of considering your projects on a regional scale anyway. So again, it's like you were already doing RSM. It just maybe didn't have the name associated with it.

Stanford [00:30:26]:
But yeah, I think it helped kind of give us the conceptual model, though, because we were doing stuff like that. I think of something like the Missouri river, where the downstream reach is sediment starved, and there are listed species that require sediment for their life cycle. Meanwhile, we are impounding the sediment upstream. And so we have this regional setting where we have too much sediment one place and too little another place. But the inland project that has really captured my imagination. The arson project that we worked on in the last year is EOw, which is a stream on Maui, where it's built on this alluvial plain. We have a flood risk management channel through there. And the flood risk management channel has degraded seven beat in the last, you know, since it went in in the early eighties. But part of the issue is that there's also a debris basin that intercepts the sediment. And so through the regional sediment management project, the first thing we did, just like you said, is we built the sediment budget. And when we built the sediment budget, we realized that the amount of sediment that they've been removing from the debris basin, which has dominated half of the Department of Transportation budget, this is money they should be using for roads. Half of their budget is going to taking sediment out of this basin is equal to the amount of sediment that's eroded from our flood risk management channel down there. And so it's the same idea, but it's on a different scale, right?

Katie [00:31:53]:
Yeah. No, absolutely. And projects like that are perfect projects to really showcase the importance of RSM, because if we hadn't looked at it in more detail, I'm not as familiar with the project as you are, but a lot of times when we don't really understand why something's eroding, of taking a step back, understanding what the processes are that are going on, and kind of trying to change it at that level, we just sort of put a band aid on it.

Stanford [00:32:17]:
That's right.

Katie [00:32:18]:
It's like if you go to the doctor and your nose is running and your ears are clogged up and you've got a cough, like, here's. Here's your cough medicine, and here's your flonase. And, you know, these are just the different things that treat the symptoms, but not the root cause.

Stanford [00:32:31]:
That's right. Let's pivot a little bit here. You are the RSM program manager, and you're the associate technical director of NAV, which is very impressive. But before all that, you were kind of a star RSM practitioner. Can we just, like, switch hats a little bit? And can you just tell us, like, what was the RSM technology that you were known for before you were leading the program?

Katie [00:32:55]:
I went to grad school at University of South Florida, and my advisor had worked closely, really closely with the corps, and so he actually already had these connections. And the USAs, particularly our CERP, or coastal inlets research program, was really interested in the nearshore placement of dredge material, which is a type of beneficial use that we do.

Stanford [00:33:15]:
Again, I only know this because I've been hanging out with you, but can you just tell us a little bit more about, like, what does that mean? What's nearshore placement?

Katie [00:33:23]:
Yeah, it is what it sounds like. So essentially what it is is you dredge material from a nearby channel, and in order to keep the material in the system, you place it in the near shore. And so, ideally, we would love to put that material directly on the beach, but sometimes that's cost prohibitive.

Stanford [00:33:39]:
Okay.

Katie [00:33:39]:
And so putting it in the near shore, there's less construction cost associated with that. And generally, it's a sub aqueous feature. Okay. Generally, it sort of is built in the same shape as you would picture, say, a sandbar.

Stanford [00:33:52]:
Okay.

Katie [00:33:53]:
Not always. Sometimes they just sort of do discrete mounds of material that it's just material that's placed in the near shore. And what we try to do is place it in what's called a littoral zone, which is basically anything shoreward of the depth of closure, beyond which not much sediment moves. But when you're inshore of that sediment moves pretty regularly. And so that way the material can integrate itself into the system and actually can provide some level of storm protection similar to what you would consider a breakwater to do, where it allows waves to actually break over the feature rather than along the shoreline. That's what we were studying, though. We were actually looking at. We wanted to know more about these features and how much storm protection it provides. And does it actually provide sediment to the beach itself? So we were looking more into these features and their performance after they're placed.

Stanford [00:34:47]:
There's two potential benefits here. One is that by placing sediment in the near shore, you're actually not taking it out of the sediment budget. There's a chance for it to recycle, and some of it may actually reach the beach. But just having more sediment in the sediment budget is going to be good for the beach.

Katie [00:35:01]:
Exactly.

Stanford [00:35:02]:
But then you've also got these structures in the near shore where in a sediment depleted system, you don't have as much surge or flood protection. And so having these structures could potentially provide that. But we don't just want to believe that on conceptual level, we were evidence driven. And so the work you did looked at that. Are these things true?

Katie [00:35:23]:
Right, exactly. Exactly. And some of that, too. If we can figure out if some of those things, some of our hypotheses were true, you know, it kind of helps to give us the business case for why these features are important. So if there is sort of a. Well, it might cost a little more to do it this way. We can kind of point to, well, we're actually getting more out of it than if we were to dispose of it offshore. So that was actually my graduate school research. But I was working with Ernick at the time specifically, you know, Julie Rosati, who was the CERT program manager at the time, and Linda Crop, who was the RSM program manager at the time, and then just sort of continued that work once I got to Erdic. So Brian McFaul and I, he was my co PI on a lot of these projects here we started looking into. Because the other question we want to answer is, where does the material go? There's a lot of hesitation about putting material sort of seemingly willy nilly in the near shore, but without much thought to it, which we don't recommend, we recommend you actually think about where you're putting it. But where does that material go? Is it going to cover up a nearby resource. Is it going to cover up hard bottom habitats if we're in the southeast or anything like that? Brian and I made a simple tool called the sediment mobility tool to help predict that. Okay, so the other piece of this puzzle is often with navigation projects, we really don't have a lot of room in our budget to monitor these projects or really do a lot of modeling because the mission of navigation is just get the sediment out of the channel.

Stanford [00:36:53]:
It's a digging hall, digging haul. Don't get your main roads involved. Digging hall.

Katie [00:36:59]:
So they don't have a lot of. But it's really important to understand where to place the material. But there's oftentimes not a lot of room in the budget to do a robust numerical model. So the sediment mobility tool, or SMT, does this in about five minutes or less. Right. And you know, as a numerical modeler, you know that a five minute answer isn't the perfect answer, but in some cases it's a good enough answer.

Stanford [00:37:22]:
And one of the principles of modeling is build a model that's as complex as it needs to be and no more. Right, exactly. And so I think that having a quick answer, the alternative in most cases is none. I'm a huge proponent and we've worked on this together in RSM of calculators and ways to get to an estimate that will actually move management rather than a long, detailed process of getting to it. Slightly more complicated, precise answer.

Katie [00:37:53]:
Yeah, exactly. And what this does is some of the feedback we got on the tool is that it actually saves the engineers and the designers of these projects a lot of time because what used to take them a week now takes them five minutes. That was some of the research that I was doing prior to being PM and ATD and all that.

Stanford [00:38:13]:
So that's a great segue into just talking about the program in general. Cause one of the things that I really love about the RSM program is like the proximity between researcher and practitioner is very, very small. It's set up to, we do some real science. You fund some real science people doing cutting edge stuff or implementing cutting edge stuff, but they're always, one of the lines in the RSM proposal is how many tons of sedimentary can move? And another one is, who are the stakeholders and how are they involved? And it's just very. It's very practical. It's very results focused. How do you see the RSM program being like a little bit unique in the core?

Katie [00:38:57]:
Definitely. And all of that that you said is totally accurate. And, you know, it is sort of, it's unique from our headquarters level programs, but it more specifically, it's very unique from our usual urtic R and D programs. So our R and D programs are usually based in what it sounds like more basic research, sort of into the weeds research and pet projects, whereas RSM is sort of project focused, applied. What I like about that is that the. So what? The purpose of the project is much clearer to me and you can actually see it happening as you do these projects. And then the other reason is, you know, for our other R and D projects, usually projects are done in house at Erdic with field component, just to make sure that we're staying on track to making sure that we're, we're doing research that actually is needed in the field. Definitely. But largely completed by our urdic researchers. Right. RSM, on the other hand, largely we fund districts to do this research and with the hopes that they also bring along an arctic scientist to help frame the scientific questions and make sure that we're following proper scientific protocol to get to the answer, using the right models, gathering the right data, things like that.

Stanford [00:40:14]:
And sometimes they'll even bring in an HEC research.

Katie [00:40:16]:
Yeah, an HEC every now and again.

Stanford [00:40:19]:
But that is how this is different because, you know, every year, about a month to a week, depending on the district, before the RSM deadline, I'm not necessarily thinking what RSM proposals am I going to make? I'm getting emails from districts about, these are the arson proposals we want to do. We'd like some HCC support, but it's really driven by a district problem. And then the funding amounts are, you do some very big investments in some tools and some big projects, but you also have project level funding. And so it's something that someone could spin up in a year, bring on a researcher and work closely with the researcher and the district to get a product by the end of the year.

Katie [00:41:00]:
Right. Most of our projects are designed to be focused enough to where we can, you know, have a hypothesis and a conclusion in the same year, fiscal year. Sometimes we can expand on that, you know, and so different than other programs at the headquarters level, those are sort of big programs where the goal is to construct. We don't do that either. We basically give the districts a little bit of seed funding to look at their projects in a little bit more detail and get more creative with how they can manage their projects. And what we were talking about budgets earlier. It just helps to add some capacity to their budgets so that they can actually run models and think of different alternatives rather than just doing the same thing every time.

Stanford [00:41:44]:
It's some funding that gives them flexibility to think creatively is really what it is because their operation and management budgets, it's digging hall. Right. But if they want some mental space and some time to run some models to think about. Yeah, but what if we did this differently? They're almost like grants to do that. Okay. So usually talking about the core R and D process might be literally the most boring thing we could ever do. Right. And it's very inside baseball, but because this is actually open to the districts, and districts do make proposals to this program, maybe let's just talk briefly about like how would a district get involved in an RSM project?

Katie [00:42:25]:
The RSM program is open to anyone really, all year round. So I'll start off by saying that we do bi monthly calls and my invite list for that is something like five to 600 people. So.

Stanford [00:42:38]:
But get on it.

Katie [00:42:39]:
Yeah, but get on it. You know, if you'd like to be on it, certainly reach out to me and we can put you on that list. And then that way you can learn about what's going on in the program. In about the March timeframe, we put out a call for proposals. And that goes to that five or 600 person distro list. And it's open to anyone. We encourage districts to reach out to Erdic, IWR to, you know, come up with ideas, work together to come up with ideas. And again, that's another thing I like about the program too, is that it really fosters that relationship between Erdic and the field, even more so than some of the other R and D programs, because that's what makes a really successful project.

Stanford [00:43:15]:
That's right. Yeah. I just imagine I started with the corps in the Buffalo district, and you, I was handed the sediment mission and I didn't know about the program and it was brand new. Right. But I just could imagine as a young engineer facing a sediment problem, either having some funding to just be able to think about it outside of my standard operational requirements. Or even better yet, like I want to bring Alex Sanchez or Gary Brown or Garav onto this project so that like, as a new engineer, I could have someone who has a lot more experience, help me think about it and come up with innovative solutions. And you even know how to even build a set budget. There's that chance to not only build capacity but also mentoring into these tasks.

Katie [00:43:59]:
Absolutely. And I do think that's the value of having the erdic folks on there as well. Because in addition to maybe not knowing about the program. We do so much here at Erdogan.

Stanford [00:44:08]:
It's unbelievable.

Katie [00:44:09]:
And, you know, in HEC, too, you know, where not everyone knows all the models and the tools that are available to them. So having someone from Erdic or HEC on your team to help guide you to some of that is really helpful. And then also. But I would have my detail at the district recently. There's not a lot of time in the field schedule to work on these projects. So having some of that urtic support is really helpful for that, too.

Stanford [00:44:33]:
That's right. If you've got someone on the job who's giving it a little bit more focused attention while you're in your daily operation and management, that can also be really helpful. But the thing I love about it is that it still is always district focused. You don't even get an RSM project if there isn't a distinct district need. And that's just, that's just my favorite because that's what the labs and centers are supposed to do. We're supposed to support the districts, and this actually provides a opportunity to make those connections and, and do that kind of work.

Katie [00:45:07]:
Right. And we do fund a lot of projects that are building and enhancing tools. Those are important as well. However, it needs to be made clear how these tools will really help to inform the district, engineers, scientists on how to do their projects better. And so for those projects, a lot of times they come from Erdic, but I do like to see field involvement in that to make sure that our tools are hitting the mark and it's something that they'll actually use and need.

Stanford [00:45:34]:
Yeah. Let's just wrap up with one question here. What is your vision for the future of RSM?

Katie [00:45:40]:
Yeah, it's a big question, but, you know, really, for me, it's about making RSM, or at least the consideration of RSM, standard operating procedure in the core. Right now, any of the things that we're doing in RSM, not just the program, but sort of involving the concept in our projects, are sort of one offs. And some districts are better than others. Some are used to and supportive of RSM. Some have never heard of it. But I truly believe in my heart of hearts that RSM is the way to go. Our budgets are questionable every year, and so from just a financial standpoint, we can't afford to be looking at discrete projects anymore. At a certain time, we need to be looking at lifecycle time scales across our entire aors. That's even just like the funding brass, tax dollars and cents. But on top of that, we also have the really important piece of our environment and our habitats, these stewards of these resources. Exactly. And so we've learned a lot since the seventies when we were throwing hard structures everywhere. And so now we need to start really implementing those things that we've learned about coastal engineering and riverine engineering and trying to do better.

Stanford [00:46:52]:
Yeah.

Katie [00:46:52]:
You know, and so I think that we'll get there and so the time is really right to make it standard operating procedure. It's just how exactly we go about doing that. And so at a programmatic level, I've been working a lot with the headquarters navigation team to find ways to start doing that. So I think it's really exciting time and I think it makes me proud to sort of continue the legacy of the program, and I'm really excited to see where it goes.

Stanford [00:47:19]:
It is a really exciting time. It's an exciting idea that we could be better stewards of tax dollars, but also resources. Katie Boucher, thank you for joining us.

Katie [00:47:29]:
Thanks so much for having me.

Stanford [00:47:30]:
Thank you for believing in this podcast. This has been one of the most fun things I've done in my career.

Katie [00:47:35]:
Well, good. I'm glad. You know what? This is important stuff, man.

Stanford [00:47:39]:
Thanks so much.

Katie [00:47:39]:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

Stanford [00:47:44]:
I really appreciate Katie coming on the podcast and for the RSM program that funded this project. Next episode, we'll be talking to Doctor Richard Iverson from the USGS. You cannot talk about mud and debris flows without Doctor Iverson's name. Coming up, he's done some of the most influential work on these high concentration flows and geologic hazards, including the seminal mesoscaled debris flow experiments that unlocked a bunch of new insights on these processes. We talked to him about geological hazards in general and then the actual mechanics of how these high concentration flows work. It was a great conversation. These are informal conversations, and the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of the US Army Corps engineers, their partners, or the offices or centers of the guests or hosts. Mike Loretto edited this episode and wrote the music for this season. Im Stanford Gibson, the sediment transport specialist at the Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering center. Thanks for tuning in.