EDITORIAL
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH / Tuesday, May 23, 2000

SOMETHING'S FISHY

ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

As the chorus of criticism rises against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
for fudging research data to fatten its budget, some Republican senators
are
scurrying to protect the Corps from reform.

Last week, Republican senators tacked a rider onto a farm budget bill that
would build ramparts around the embattled Corps. The rider states that no
money could be used to reorganize the Corps.

That's both a bad idea and a bad approach to governance. But it's not
surprising, considering the cozy relationship the Corps has long enjoyed
with some members of Congress -- including our own Sen. Christopher "Kit"
Bond
--
and their pals in the barge and grain business. The current situation the
Corps finds itself in is a glaring example of how arrogance and friends in
high places can cloud -- even corrupt -- judgment at taxpayers' expense.
And it's a good argument for why the Corps needs to distance itself from
its buddies.

The Corps has come under attack this year for manipulating data in a major,
$54 million study of the need for seven new locks and dams on the
Mississippi and Illinois rivers. The Corps allegedly inflated
transportation costs, the potential export market and the demand for grain
shipped by barge in order  to justify the billion-dollar lock and dam
project.

The integrity of the study began to unravel in February, when Donald
Sweeney, an economist in the Corps' St. Louis office, said he had been
removed from his job after sticking by his finding that barge traffic on
the Mississippi River did not warrant the massive project. That prompted
Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera to order an investigation of the study.
He's also looking into allegations in an internal memo that the Corps was
planning a major expansion of its reach and role -- and budget -- without
the knowledge of
its civilian administrators. In March, Mr. Caldera announced proposed
reforms  to reassert civilian control over the agency. That sent Mr. Bond,
among  others, rushing to the Corps' defense.

Things have gotten worse from there. Within the last two weeks, a second
Corps economist, Richard Manguno, told Senate investigators that he was
ordered to alter the formulas used to calculate whether proposed projects
were economically justified. Mr. Manguno, a 23-year Corps veteran, has been
the lead economist for the study since September of 1998. Then, last week,
a group of independent university economists hired to evaluate the Corps'
study said it was so unscientific that it couldn't be used to justify
expanding
just one lock, much less overhauling seven.

Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it intends to file a
"jeopardy opinion" with the Corps, criticizing it for river management
practices that have put two endangered species in the Mississippi River in
greater peril. The species are the pallid sturgeon, a rare fish found in
quiet, shallow backwaters, and a freshwater mussel. The Corps management of
the river has also been criticized for years by environmental groups.

Clearly, something fishy's going on here. And taxpayers -- whether they
shed tears over the pallid sturgeon or just hate to see good money flushed
down the Mississippi -- are owed an accounting. Good decisions about the
environmental and economic risks and benefits of public works projects of
this scale can't be based on doctored data and preconceived conclusions.
Secretary Caldera should continue -- full steam ahead -- with his
investigation. In the meantime, Senate apologists for the Corps should back
off.

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