Sorry for the cross postings
From the Corps Reform Network
Kelly Miller
Associate Director of Water Resources and Outreach
American Rivers
202-347-7550
American Rivers * Audubon * Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy *
Izaak Walton League of America * Mississippi River Basin Alliance *
Sierra Club
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 3, 2003
For further information contact:
Kelly Miller, American Rivers, 202-347-7550;
Dan McGuiness, Audubon, 651-290-1695;
Mark Muller, IATP, 612-870-3420;
Rick Moore, IWLA, 651-341-1870;
Mark Beorkrem, MRBA, 217-526-4480;
Bill Redding, Sierra Club, 608-257-4994
President’s FY 2004 Budget proposal is good news
for the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers
Conservationists applaud the President’s FY 2004
budget for fully funding the Mississippi River’s environmental
restoration program, and for targeting ongoing problems with
the scandal-plagued Upper Mississippi/Illinois River
Navigation Study.
The FY 2004 budget not only fully funds the highly
successful Environmental Management Program (EMP)
at its authorized $33.32 million level, but it also establishes
it as one of eight projects considered by the administration
to be “the highest priorities now under construction.”
This is a welcomed change from FY 2003 funding levels,
which is at $15 million in the Omnibus Appropriations
Bill currently being wrangled over in conference committee,
and from the $20 million appropriations it has received in
recent years.
"For more than a decade the EMP program has been
struggling financially to meet a proven need for habitat
restoration and long term monitoring on the river. With
a $33 million appropriation this program can begin to
make a real difference in reversing 150 years of habitat
degradation. We will work hard to support this initiative
at every opportunity," commented Dan McGuiness,
Director, Audubon Upper Mississippi River Campaign.
The President’s budget release also targeted the Upper
Mississippi/Illinois River Navigation Study, citing the
controversy over Corps handling of projecting benefits
from expanding commercial navigation system locks
on the river. Specifically, the budget review chides the
Corps for not seriously exploring other congestion-relief
alternatives besides lock expansion, and for using the
antiquated Tow-Cost model in its current
economic modeling for the Upper Mississippi River.
The budget states, “The Corps should make greater
efforts to reduce traffic congestion through scheduling
and other demand-management approaches.” Citing
the National Academy of Sciences recommendations
that the Corps needs a new model for evaluating commercial
navigation benefits, the budget also calls on the Corps to
“develop a new economic model to estimate properly
the benefits of major new investments [such as the navigation locks].”
"We're very encouraged that the Administration seems
to recognize the serious disagreements over the soundness
of the Corps' economic projections on the Upper Mississippi,"
said Rick Moore, Upper Mississippi River Regional
Coordinator with the Izaak Walton League of
America. “Our hope has been renewed that we can possibly
resolve these disagreements before the study schedule forces
us into a train wreck."
“This budget is great news for the Mississippi River,”
said Melissa Samet, Senior Director of Water Resources
for American Rivers. “We remain hopeful that the Corps will
follow the administration’s recommendations, and Congress
will maintain the restoration funding levels.”
Additional Background:
The Environmental Management Program (EMP) funds
critical habitat restoration projects throughout the Upper
Mississippi and Illinois River reaches as well as supports
a long term resource monitoring program backing the
restoration work. The program has received universal
support from the environmental community, state
agencies participating in river management and from
navigation and agriculture interests affected by river
management. Over 68,000 acres have been rehabilitated
through projects funded by the EMP in five states and on
the Upper Mississippi River refuges.
The Upper Mississippi/Illinois River Navigation Study is
wrangled in controversy due to the Corps’ handling of
projecting benefits from expanding commercial navigation
system locks on the river. The scandal plagued study
dismissed attempts by the original economist on the
project, Donald Sweeney, to incorporate modern
economic modeling processes into evaluating costs
and benefits of dealing with congestion at some locks
on the two rivers. Sweeney later turned whistleblower
regarding the Corps’ handling of his economic work,
which resulted in a halt and later reorganizing of the study.
The Corps is expected to release their Navigation
Feasibility report in 2004.
Just as the administration has recommended in their budget,
the environmental community has urged the Corps to adopt
a new economic model. In comments to the Corps following
release of the Interim Report for the Navigation Study in
June of 2002, environmentalists stated:
“We urge the Corps to comply with the NRC recommendations
by rejecting the Tow Cost Model, deleting the grossly
optimistic traffic projections prepared by the Sparks Companies,
and immediately focusing the study on the investigation and
implementation of small-scale measures. If the Corps had
followed the NRC recommendations in 2001, a revised
Spatial Equilibrium model would nearly be complete; instead,
the Corps proposes to use models and methods that reflect
a major step backward from the draft feasibility study. We
also urge the Corps to abandon its "scenario-based" approach
and instead employ a credible benefit-cost analysis that
(1) explicitly recognizes the uncertainty and
risks associated with attempting to forecast the future, and
(2) recognizes adverse environmental impacts and
reasonably accounts for environmental mitigation and
restoration costs. As importantly, we urge the Corps to
submit the model the agency proposes to use in the revised
feasibility study for review and approval by the NRC panel.”
For Immediate Release Contact:
February 3, 2003 Melissa
Samet, (415) 482-8150
Eric Eckl, (202) 347-7550
President’s FY 2004 Budget Supports Corps Reform
(Washington, D.C.) The Bush Administration’s 2004
budget sends a clear signal to the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers (Corps), and is a bright
spot for the environment according to American Rivers.
The budget funds much needed restoration efforts while
reducing or cutting funding for some harmful Corps projects.
The Budget also identifies principles for improving the
Corps’ program performance that mirror some key
Corps reforms long sought by local, regional, and
national environmental and taxpayer organizations.
“The Budget couldn’t be clearer. The President wants
the Corps and Congress to break with the failed practices
of the past,” said Melissa Samet, Senior Director, Water
Resources at American Rivers. “For the sake of the
environment and the taxpayers, we hope the President will
fight to make real Corps reform a reality.”
The budget sends a strong signal that the Corps should not
be building outdated, antiquated projects like the Yazoo
Backwater Pumping plant in Mississippi. The President’s
Budget provides no funding for the Yazoo Pumps. The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned
that the Yazoo Pumps will drain more than 200,000 acres
of ecologically significant wetlands, including tens of thousands
of acres that the federal government has already paid to protect.
And an independent economic analysis commissioned by EPA
shows that the project will return far less than one dollar of
benefit for each tax dollar spend to build it. The Yazoo Pumps
are opposed by EPA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
environmental and taxpayer organizations, and citizens from
throughout the State of Mississippi and the nation.
“Its high time that the government stopped asking taxpayers
to subsidize wetland destruction,” said Samet. “Zeroing out
funding for projects like the Yazoo Pumps protects the
environment and makes more money available to serve
real national needs.”
Four out of the top nine budget and construction priorities
identified in the President’s Budget are for environmental
restoration efforts. The President’s priorities include the
Upper Mississippi River System Environmental Management
Program, Missouri River Fish and Wildlife Mitigation,
Columbia River Fish Recovery, and Everglades Restoration.
The Budget also identifies principles for improving program
performance that mirror some of the reforms long sought
by the environmental community. These include:
*External Review of Corps projects to ensure use of sound
and modern science, economics, and analytical techniques.
*Pursuit of only those authorized projects that “meet current
economic and environmental standards and that address
contemporary needs.”
*Pursuit of only those projects that provide “a very high net
economic or environmental return to society relative to their cost.”
*Prioritization of projects within a watershed based on the
comparative net economic or environmental return.
*Deauthorization of projects outside the Corps’ main mission
areas, of navigation projects with extremely low commercial
use, and of inactive projects.
*Requiring local entities to pay their fair share for Corps projects.
It is disappointing, however, that the Corps’ Flood
Mitigation and Riverine Ecosystem Restoration program
(“Challenge 21”), remains unfunded. The Challenge 21
program, which is designed to assist communities in
implementing non-structural and sustainable solutions to
reducing flood losses, has never been funded. Equally
troubling is the Administration’s failure to propose sufficient
funding for the Corps’ Section 1135 program, which allows
the Corps to make modifications to existing Corps projects
to improve the environment, and the Corps’ Section 206
program that provides for small-scale projects to restore
aquatic ecosystems.
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