Editorial: Pass WRDA Without Crippling Amendments

Scenarios related to the inland waterways are changing, but potential outcomes are certain.

For the first time in five years there is an opportunity to pass a Water Resources Development Act (WRDA). No action is expected until late this month, or even early July. But a win-win result is not assured.

Worth Hager, president of the National Waterways Conference, says WRDA (S. 728 in the Senate) should be passed without crippling amendments. Lurking on the sidelines is the Feingold-McCain Corps reform bill (S. 753), which probably will be offered totally, or in part, as amendments to S. 728. She calls damaging provisions "egregious."

The worst, Hager says, include one that would require using Inland Waterways Trust Fund monies for operations and maintenance; until now they have been limited to construction. Another provision would delete the stipulation in law that directs planners to use transportation savings to shippers of waterborne commerce as a primary direct navigation benefit. If low-cost shipping is not intended to be a benefit to shippers, what is waterborne commerce all about? S. 753 also messes around with the benefit/cost ratio formula by requiring all projects, including those already under construction, to have at least a 1.5 to 1 benefit cost ratio. If they don’t, they are subject to deauthorization.

Hager says S. 753 also has "non-streamlining and unworkable" provisions on planning. If a wetland is affected in any way, project benefits cannot be counted, no matter what the mitigation plan. And it calls for independent review after Corps draft feasibility studies.

Everyone interested in an improved inland waterways system should write his/her congressional delegates and say that WRDA should be passed as is; nothing from Feingold-McCain should be tacked on as amendments. Those in Congress have to know we care about the issues. It only requires three or four sentences to make the point. If we fail to support S. 728, the outcome is uncertain.

Another change is passage by the Senate of a new ethanol mandate. It requires that by 2012 refiners use at least 8 billion gallons of renewable fuels, mostly made from corn, in the nation’s gasoline. Even now corn farmers are investing in ethanol plants that will provide a closer market and reduce shipping costs.

The amount of agricultural products moved on the river is declining, partly due to increased interest in ethanol and growing competition from South America. Also, growing U.S. demands dictate that we use more corn at home. In the meantime, some Midwest farmers are switching to soybeans and shipping via rail to the Pacific Northwest. A lurking soybean fungus also represents uncertainty. Changes in the agricultural export market are being felt by the towing industry, but there is hope in the growing interest shown in container-on-barge operations. It is a changing scenario, and we can only guess at the future.

Now comes a new change. In late May, all eight Missouri River basin governors signed a conservation accord that calls upon the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "to do what it legally can to conserve water behind its five Missouri River dams from Nebraska to Montana (a sixth dam is outside that perimeter).

The Corps wants to save 500,000 acre-feet of water in the reservoirs this year. But Mark Johnston, a spokesman for South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, who led the effort to draft a resolution addressing drought, said, "We’re not talking about saving several feet of water, …we’re talking about inches."

The signing of the resolution demonstrates agreement that drought cannot be ignored. As one example, docks in the Sioux City, Iowa, area (Sioux City is the head of navigation on the Missouri) have, as reports indicate, "fallen silent." Big Soo and other ports are facing a second season without barges. Commodities are being diverted to truck and rail.

In addition to addressing drought, however, the pact calls for "maximum conservation efforts and full and adequate federal funding to help endangered and threatened species." Will that come back to haunt us? Detractors have used endangered and threatened species as wedges against Missouri navigation for decades. When the drought is ended and river flows are back to normal, will the rift start again?

The above issues represent change and uncertainty. There could be others. We’ll just have to stay tuned.

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