Editorial: Optimism Apparent On WRDA, But Don’t Let Down

Considerable optimism has been expressed, both last fall and now during 2006, that a Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) will be passed by the Senate. WRDA 2005 passed House muster midyear 2005, but the opposition is out in renewed force. So while industry leaders and supportive senators don their armor and fight it out on the front lines, individuals who support the idea of maintaining and modernizing waterways should not fail to tell their senators how they feel. Let them know this is a critical issue deserving immediate action.

As the National Waterways Conference reported last week, at least 81 senators have signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) seeking action on the long-delayed WRDA. There has not been a WRDA passed for five years, but the NWC and the National Waterways Alliance are not letting up. They offer praise to all those who have worked diligently to obtain signatures, including Letmon Lee in the office of Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-Mo.) and Todd Atkinson in the office of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)

Congressional support was very strong prior to the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, and obviously it lifted spirits among industry leaders that finally success was within sight. Katrina, of course, disrupted the advance of WRDA 2005 and, most likely, hundreds of other issues. An unknown number of agency budgets are being squeezed as money is funneled to hurricane recovery, among them the budget of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

There is little question that the forward progress of WRDA has been thwarted by hurricane recovery and, we might add, what appears to be an inability to cope with such a large disaster. The “inability” is merely a fact. We doubt any government of any country would have been prepared to handle the devastation and its aftermath.

News of hurricane recovery continues to reveal new failures in the overall program. Does this mean more delays? February 6 was the opening day of a special 12-day Louisiana legislative session to deal with hurricane recovery. Gov. Kathleen Blanco included a tour of the devastated areas, in which about half of the 144-member legislators took part. It is reported that most attended a speech she gave on the issue. Some said Gov. Blanco was wasting time and “using devastation and suffering as a publicity stunt to repair her image.”

Importantly, Blanco said she wants to use $6.2 billion in federal hurricane recovery block grants and $1.5 billion in federal aid to minimize future damage from flooding. The Associated Press reported that most of the aid, some $5.6 billion, would go to housing assistance.

Television viewers express befuddlement over seeing 9,000 mobile homes still parked at an airport in Arkansas, where the space draws $25,000 a month rent, while thousands are homeless or now required to leave emergency housing for which the government has now paid more than half a billion dollars. Louisiana has approved only a small number of the more than 100 sites that need approval before mobile homes can be located there.

The river problems are different. The government has had decades to deal with river system modernization and maintenance and more than five years to deal with new water resources development legislation. The need to curry favor occasionally to our transportation infrastructure is obvious. Last week we reported that railroad executives are shocked at the eroding conditions of the Upper Mississippi River navigation facilities. They openly admit that they are not capable of transporting the amount of cargo that barges move on the system. Beyond that, system failure would add millions of trucks to our overburdened highways as well.

Shortsighted critics refer to statistics of only recent years, showing river traffic to be down or growing very slowly. Critics continue to say that the Upper Mississippi/Illinois river project is based on faulty economic models and unrealistic river traffic forecasts.

Critics cannot contest the age of the locks and dams on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers, so they allude to a Corps statement that they interpret to mean the half-century-old-plus locks can work well for another 50 years if properly maintained. The purpose is not to make undersized locks continue to operate. The object is to modernize the system by replacing them. As for river traffic, they ignore totally the increase in river traffic that will certainly develop as the world’s demand for food grows exponentially. They also ignore totally the environmental benefits of commercial river transportation.

It is not in the interest of the United States to default on foreign agriculture markets and let other countries take our customers away from us. Agriculture is a bright spot in our foreign trade picture. The fact is that critics prefer that the Upper Mississippi be a home to recreational craft only and that the commercial traffic be helped “out the door.” What a tragedy that would be for this nation.

In the eyes of foreign leaders, the waterways of America are magnificent, but they express wonder over why we are reluctant to modernize and keep them up to snuff. The world has recognized the value of the Mississippi River and tributaries system for decades. Unfortunately, too much of that system has been held together by bailing wire and duct tape during that time. The “doctors” have merely kept the patients alive.

Sen. Frist would do well to schedule action on this critical legislative matter.

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