Editorial: House/Senate Pact Would Restore Corps Funds

The U.S. House and Senate have struck a deal of a $30.5 billion energy and water bill that appropriates $5.3 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It may or may not be pure politics, but it’s music to our ears. The Corps has been operating with an inadequate budget for too long.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the agreement is more than $1 billion above what the White House had proposed for the new fiscal year that began October 1. Hopefully the joint House/Senate action is an indication that legislators have decided it is foolish to expect an agency with so much mandated responsibility to be continually strapped budget-wise.

It is promising that three-quarters of the additional money (about $735 million) is dedicated to construction, including an estimated 20 new-project starts, the Journal reported.

“Within the Interior Department’s Bureau of Reclamation, the same pattern holds, as lawmakers agreed to provide $1.03 billion, $60 million above current funding and almost $114 million above the administration’s request.”

Not only has the Corps been required to operate with an inadequate budget for decades, Missouri River water wars and other legal entanglements cause a constant drain on what funds the agency does have. For example, the Corps must respond to endless lawsuits over its actions involving the Missouri River Annual Operating Plan (AOP). Despite a recent court ruling that seems to provide a means for the agency to control water releases totally, objections keep arising and more challenges are inevitable. This is no little drain. The wars have continued for decades, each group of stakeholders making demands that, taken as a whole, don’t seem possible. Now the Corps has to contend with allegations stemming from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

When the court confirmed the Corps’ primary role as flood control and navigation, it stipulated, in so many words, if trying to accommodate wildlife with water releases gets in the way of that primary role, then the Endangered Species Act does not come into play. Yet, it is Congress alone that can make the Endangered Species Act null and void, even if only temporarily.

The Marshall (Mo.) Democrat News reports that Missouri State Sen. Bill Stouffer of Napleton is urging area residents to attend Corps-sponsored meetings concerning the proposed spring rise. Meetings include November 15 in Kansas City and November 16 in Jefferson City and St. Louis. Others will be held in Montana, Nebraska and South Dakota. “To fight this potentially harmful proposal we must be informed and up to date on the issue,” he said.

In the meantime, the Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune reports that “Burleigh County commissioners will lend their voices to what they hope is a growing list of discontent with the Corps’ plan to build Missouri River sandbars for wildlife habitat.” The activity is part of the agency’s $83 million Emergent Sandbar Habitat Program on the river. Under the plan the Corps would create man-made sandbars or exfoliate existing sandbars 10 acres in size every 2.5 miles along the entire reach of the Missouri from Nebraska and into Montana. The purpose would be to enhance habitat for the interior least tern and the piping plover.

“The Burleigh County Water Resource Board has opposed the Corps’ program, which comes at the recommendation of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service,” the Tribune said. The newly created Missouri River Joint Water Resource Board also opposes the plan. The board plans to oppose it until the Corps produces a more comprehensive environmental impact statement and reviews it. The board said it does not oppose efforts to increase the numbers of terns and plovers. It believes, however, that prior to the construction of dams, the Missouri River corridor in North Dakota was not the principal nesting ground for these birds, because of the double spring rise in the river, which impacted nesting on sandbars.

As the Annual Operating Plan relates to navigation, the Midwest Area River Coalition (MARC 2000) anticipates that the 2006 navigation season on the Missouri will be shortened from 15 to as many as 58 days, “with the barest of minimum flows provided to support a navigable channel.”

According to the AOP, releases planned for the spring of 2006 could be delayed until 2007 if fewer than 36.5 million acre-feet of water existed in the reservoir system on March 1 and May 1. A major change in the Corps procedure is to include three-day rain forecasts of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in its water-release planning. Forecasts that could lift water levels above flood-control constraints could delay or cancel releases.

“The volume, timing and distribution of melting snow from the plains and mountains of Montana and Wyoming will ultimately help determine the navigation season,” MARC 2000 said. The season is scheduled to be announced July 1, 2006.

The WJ has argued repeatedly that Congress should exercise its power to remove the conflict between ESA and the Flood Control Act so that the Fish & Wildlife Service and Corps are not constantly at odds. We suspect that such a fix would make it possible for the Corps’ to accomplish more with its budget.

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