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Subject: AP on Bargegate


Amid charges, Corps says further review is in order

By LIBBY QUAID
The Associated Press
03/20/00 7:41 PM Eastern

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Army Corps of Engineers officials say further study is
needed before determining whether there is any validity to charges the
agency doctored data to defend $1 billion in dam construction on the
Mississippi and Illinois rivers, according to an in-house review released
Monday.

But the study suggested re-examining barge traffic to see whether the
construction needs to be done immediately or can be delayed.

The internal examination is among several investigations into whether the
agency ordered changes in economic analysis of the need for expanding the
60-year-old lock-and-dam system from Minneapolis to Cairo, Ill.

Donald Sweeney, the Corps economist who led the seven-year, $54 million
study, filed a sworn affidavit last month accusing top Corps officials of
rigging the data. Sweeney maintains he was reassigned in 1998 after his
team
concluded the costs of large-scale improvements would far outweigh any
benefit.

The barge industry and grain shippers want swifter passage, while
environmentalists argue that navigation is killing the rivers and their
ecosystems.

The Corps study said in general the study followed agency guidelines but
concluded "additional information and explanation is required."

The memorandum, signed by Major Gen. Hans Van Winkle, the Corps' deputy
commander for civil works, recommended broadening the review to include
navigation industry and public-sector interests, as well as other Corps
districts. The memo also suggested re-visiting earlier projections of
growth
in barge traffic and looking more closely at the impact of lengthening the
locks on recreational boating and on fish and habitat.

Corps spokeseman Homer Perkinds said the four pages of recommendations will
be followed.

"The report states what needs to be done, and I think we'll let it stand on
its own," he said.

Charges by Sweeney, accompanied by reams of supporting documents, prompted
the federal Office of Special Counsel to conclude the Corps probably
violated the law and to order a full investigation.

Army Secretary Louis Caldera announced last month that the National Academy
of Sciences, a congressionally chartered private group, would review the
Corps' study.

Environmental groups want spending on the project halted until the
investigations are settled. Tim Searchinger, an attorney with Environmental
Defense, a pro-environment group, said the Corps' report raises many of the
same issues cited by Sweeney and opponents of the expansion.

"It seems like a compromise between the chefs and the cleanup team,"
Searchinger said. "It raises good questions and bad questions, but we think
the real point is that it's not appropriate for the same people who cooked
the books to be doing the new work."

The Corps had planned to issue draft plans for improving the system of 43
locks and 37 dams as early as July, but the investigations could delay
that.
Four alternatives, from $190 million to $1 billion, are on the table.

The most recent analysis leans toward lengthening five Mississippi River
locks, along with other, smaller improvements. The most costly also would
double the capacity of two Illinois River locks.

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