Gulf Restoration Network

 

Closing A Hurricane HighwayThe Army Corps of Engineers is the single federal agency with the biggest impact on rivers around the country, as it builds projects in every major watershed in the U.S.  As we saw a year ago with the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, poorly constructed Corps projects can have huge impacts on our communities, endangering lives and property as well as damaging our rivers and wildlife.  Additionally, many Corps navigation and flood control projects destroyed coastal wetlands that could have reduced hurricane storm surge.

The Corps has conceded what outside experts have concluded—flaws in the design and construction of New Orleans flood control projects led to the levee failures. Dozens of studies by outside experts over the last decade have confirmed that Corps of Engineers project planning requires improvement.

The Gulf Restoration Network is working with local, state and national organizations to bring about long needed changes to reform the way the Corps operates, makes decisions and designs projects.

 

The Issues of Corps Reform

Closing A Hurricane HighwayThe Army Corps of Engineers is the single federal agency with the biggest impact on rivers around the country, as it builds projects in every major watershed in the U.S.  As we saw a year ago with the devastation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, poorly constructed Corps projects can have huge impacts on our communities, endangering lives and property as well as damaging our rivers and wildlife.  Additionally, many Corps navigation and flood control projects destroyed coastal wetlands that could have reduced hurricane storm surge.

The Corps has conceded what outside experts have concluded—flaws in the design and construction of New Orleans flood control projects led to the levee failures. Dozens of studies by outside experts over the last decade have confirmed that Corps of Engineers project planning requires improvement.

The Gulf Restoration Network is working with local, state and national organizations to bring about long needed changes to reform the way the Corps operates, makes decisions and designs projects.

 

Current Corps Reform Legislation

As Congress debates the authorization of the Water Resources Development Act (which authorizes and funds Corps projects), Senators McCain and Feingold have passed an amendment that includes many key Corps reform provisions.

A number of Congressional committees and agencies are investigating the failures that exacerbated damage from Hurricane

Katrina, and several shortcomings have become apparent:

• Pork Barrel Priorities: The Corps of Engineers lacks a rational basis for setting priorities on which projects should receive funding first. More often than not, projects are funded based on the political clout of members of Congress.
• Weakened Wetlands: The Corps' planning rules do not place the same value on protecting or restoring wetlands as they do on economic development. Every year, 25 square miles of Louisiana's coastal wetlands are lost because river sediments that once spread out and replenished the Mississippi's coastal delta are now funneled into the Gulf of Mexico, largely because the natural wetlands were sacrificed for navigation and flood control during the last century. These wetlands once served as a natural hurricane buffer, reducing storm surge and absorbing wind and wave energy. More than 1 million acres of these coastal wetlands--or 1,900 square miles--have been lost since 1930.
• No Righting of Past Wrongs: The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet was built by the Corps to provide a short cut to the Gulf of Mexico. Even though barge traffic has diminished on the waterway, the canal remains, continuing to contribute to the erosion of the marshes and acting as a funnel that brought Katrina's massive storm surge straight into New Orleans.

How does the Feingold-McCain provisions address these problems? Specifically they will:

• Modernize the Corps' playbook: The Corps project planning guidelines are more than 20 years out of date and have been consistently criticized by water experts and the National Academies of Science as needing overhaul to incorporate modern economic and environmental principles.
• Require a strong review process: Proposed projects that cost more than $40 million or are controversial will have to be independently reviewed by an expert, to ensure that the Corps' plans are based on sound economics and science.
• Improve wetland management: The Corps of Engineers will be required to comply with the same mitigation standards that must be met by all other government or private entities. If one of their projects impacts a river or wetland and the impact is unavoidable, they must mitigate the impacted waters with new or restored wetlands.
• Shift priorities: In the past, the Corps of Engineers has developed projects that put economic interests, navigation and flood control above protecting wetlands. Feingold-McCain would do a better job balancing restoration with traditional priorities.