Editorial: Dammed If They Do, Damned If They Don’t

Once again the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is being put in the precarious position of being criticized no matter how legal matters turn out. U.S. District Judge James Robertson, District of Columbia, has ordered the Corps to stop work on a Mississippi River anti-flooding project and undo $7 million in construction that began last fall, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. All told, the St. John’s Bayou/New Madrid Floodway Project would cost about $107 million. The Corps’ Memphis District is considering an appeal.

Like most major river projects, this one has been around a long time and has inspired ongoing battle cries from opponents and proponents alike. In the final analysis, if the Corps appeals and is able to complete the project, it will have “dammed” (actually constructed a quarter-mile earthen levee) out the river. If it loses the appeal, it will face “damnation” by flood-control proponents who have supported the idea since it first appeared on the Corps’ drawing boards three decades ago. Either way, criticism will continue.

According to the Post, “The project seeks to plug one of the last connections between the Mississippi and its flood plain.” And like most major river projects, the overall benefits have been disputed from the beginning, even to the point where one U.S. Fish & Wildlife official called it “absolutely ridiculous.” Environmental Defense and the National Wildlife Federation, which filed the suit, argue that the project is meant to increase the value of farmland in the 400,000-acre project area. The judge says the project has “obvious flaws.” People in the community of Pinhook, which reportedly has about 50 residents, say they need flood protection in order to be able to get to work.

The WJ is not taking sides in this issue, since it has nothing to do with navigation. On the one hand, we generally support the Corps as a matter of principle. We understand the value of flood control. On the other, when it comes to determining overall benefits, we’re helpless.

This issue, however, has taken a nasty turn, just as the proposed Upper Mississippi/Illinois river projects have. It was those projects and the difference of opinions over substantiating data that led one Corps official to claim that the Corps fudged figures to make its project more attractive. Hopefully we’re past that. The projects are part of the water resource legislation now pending in Congress. In the case of the flood control project, the Post reported, “In his ruling last week, Robertson scolded the Corps for ‘arbitrary and capricious reasoning—manipulating models and changing definitions when necessary to make this project seem compliant with the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, when it is not.’” The story quoted Robertson as saying the Corps has worked to justify a project that has obvious flaws.

We can’t speak to the matter of manipulating models and changing definitions in the flood control case. But the term “fudging figures” (or others akin to that) was repeated over and over ad infinitum during the Upper Miss/Illinois projects squabble. But the projects’ purpose is to aid navigation and eliminate transportation choke points on those two rivers. We took sides. Figures being fed into computer models were contested by the river industry as not being correct. So change resulted.

If the flood-control project in the Missouri Bootheel has been contested for three decades, it is not unexpected that changes have taken place to make the project compliant with environmental laws that were enacted virtually in the same era that the project hit the drawing boards.

There are still more chapters to be written on this one.

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