A
national storm is swirling around the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
and some say it could rattle two of the agency’s most controversial
projects in the Northwest: dredging the Columbia River and
continuing operation of the Snake River dams. In February,
The Washington Post reported that the agency
rigged a $50 million economic study to justify $1 billion in
improvements on the Upper Mississippi River. The agency – with a
$12 billion budget and 37,000 employees – is also under fire for a
secret internal campaign to fatten its size and budget in the
coming years.
Members of Congress, the Pentagon
and citizen groups are calling for reforms and more
accountability.
“It certainly calls into question
many of the projects they’ve done recently,” says Steve Ellis,
water-resources manager for Taxpayers for Common Sense in
Washington, D.C. His group and the National Wildlife Federation say
both the Snake River dams and the Columbia River dredging project
will hurt essential salmon habitat, drain millions from the Corps’
budget and leave taxpayers vulnerable to lawsuits over dwindling
salmon runs.
The Corps has also taken several
body blows from Capitol Hill.
“We need a Corps
that balances economic development and environmental protection as
required by its mandate – not one that ignores environmental laws
as it chooses,” said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., in
a speech last month. He thinks Congress should consider taking the
Corps out of the Pentagon and placing it within the Department of
the Interior for more civilian control, and he wants the agency to
be subject to an investigation from an independent
commission.
So far, though, the heat from
Washington, D.C., has had no any effect on the Northwest river
projects except for more calls for review.
“We’re
getting scrutiny, so that falls over into all the districts and the
work we do,” says Dawn Edwards, a spokeswoman for the Corps’
Portland district.
Copyright © 2000 HCN and Mike Stark
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Corps catches criticism.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
