Report: [Army] Corps [of Engineers] Projects Need External Review

WASHINGTON, DC, July 26, 2002 (ENS) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should seek external scientific reviews of its most costly, complex and controversial planning studies, concludes a new report from the National Research Council. The reviews should be made public, and the Corps should respond in writing to each key element, added the committee that wrote the report.

The report, "Review Procedures for Water Resources Planning," comes as the Corps faces heavy criticism from members of Congress and environmental groups for its handling of several massive projects, including a $1 billion plan to enlarge locks on the Upper Mississippi River-Illinois Waterway.

Recent reviews by the General Accounting Office and others have shown that the Corps has a history of pushing through projects that have little economic or environmental benefit, but will deliver huge funding boosts to the agency itself.

"The highest degree of credibility will be achieved if responsibility for external review is given to an organization that is independent of the Corps," said National Research Council (NRC) committee chair James Mitchell, an emeritus professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. "There is a strong correlation between the independence of reviewers and the credibility, both real and perceived, of review."

The Corps conducts planning studies to determine if there is federal interest in projects proposed for America's waterways and, if so, whether those projects are justified on technical, economic, and environmental grounds. Congress asked the NRC, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, to produce the report after public controversies erupted in recent years over the assumptions and analyses found in certain Corps studies.

"We are glad to have this report in hand, and are beginning to review it," said Major General Robert Griffin, the Corps' director of civil works. "The Corps appreciates the extensive effort of the panel. We now have a lot of valuable information to digest as we review the document in depth."

All Corps studies that are expensive, very controversial, affect a large geographic area, or involve a high degree of environmental risk warrant an external review, the NRC committee said. External review panels should not be selected by the Corps or include Corps staff or others with a conflict of interest. Instead, the reviews should be overseen by an independent organization.

Internal reviews are adequate for Corps planning studies that are not as complex, cost less, and are less risky to the environment, the committee concluded, adding that the Corps should generally select internal review panels that are balanced between Corps staff and external experts.

(Picture caption) In April 2002, the Corps suspended a dredging project on the Delaware River after a Congressional review raised questions regarding whether the project is financially justified. (Photo by Anthony Bley)

The NRC report suggests that Congress should direct the secretary of the Army to establish a small professional staff to administer the Corps' review process, the committee said. This project review group would decide on a case by case basis whether reviews of Corps planning studies ought to be conducted externally or internally.

Decisions about whether a review will be external or internal need to be open to public appeal, the committee said. In addition, Congress and the White House should be able to request an external or internal review.

Congress also should create a review advisory board to advise the project review group, helping to ensure that reviews are consistent, thorough and timely, the report notes.

The role of all review panels should be to identify, evaluate, and comment on key assumptions that underlie technical, economic, and environmental analysis in the planning studies, the committee said. The chief of engineers, or district engineers in certain cases, must either agree with each key point in a review and explain how it will be taken into account, or rebut the comment in writing, and explain why it is being rejected.

The review panels ought to highlight areas of disagreement that need to be resolved by the White House and Congress, but they should not provide a final thumbs up or thumbs down on a project, the NRC cautioned.

The report emphasized that that a review must be initiated early enough in the study process so that their results can improve the planning study and lend credibility to the process. In more complex and controversial planning studies, it may be appropriate to conduct an initial review early on and a more comprehensive one later.

The NRC estimates that reviews generally will represent a small fraction of the overall cost of major planning studies, and occasionally may even lead to savings.

The study provides ammunition for critics of the Corps, including a powerful and growing group of Congress members. A bipartisan group of senators, including Democratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, along with Republicans Robert Smith of New Hampshire and John McCain of Arizona, have pledged to block the authorization of Corps projects unless the agency mandates external reviews of all major projects.

However, Senator Kit Bond, a Missouri Republican, and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chair Don Young, an Alaska Republican, have threatened to block legislation authorizing Corps projects if the bill includes mandatory external reviews or other proposed reforms. The two Congress members argue that requiring reviews of all projects, or even all large projects, will prove too costly to taxpayers and stall important public works projects.

A variety of conservation and taxpayer organizations have long supported independent reviews as a means of reducing the number of controversial projects supported by the Corps. These groups are calling on Congress to move swiftly to enact reforms that have been introduced in both the Senate and House during the past two years.

"We are very pleased but not surprised, by the National Academy's finding. The report strips away all lingering excuses for not implementing this key reform," said Melissa Samet, senior director of water resources at American Rivers. "Congress has just prescribed strong medicine for corporate America's accounting scandals, and it's time to do the same for the Army Corps."

The Water Resources Development Act of 2000 authorized the NRC study as well as work from three other panels. The other panels, focusing on methods of project analysis, stewardship and adaptive management, and river basins and coastal systems, should complete their analyses next summer.

In the meantime, the Corps is focusing internally on improving its planning and review capability.

"In many respects, it's a back to basics approach," explained Corps director Griffin. "We have identified our strengths and weaknesses in the planning discipline. We continue to improve our planning capability by emphasizing training, state of the art modeling, and enhanced regional planning capability."

Griffin added that the Corps agrees with others who are calling for a more holistic watershed approach to the nation's water resource issues, and believes that the time is now for a public policy dialogue regarding the management of the nation's water.

I wonder how much money is wasted by the Corps of Engineers on unneeded projects.

Their entire budget. The Corps finished what needed doing in the early 50s. Everything they have done since has been a hideous boondogle and general Cluster F*ck.

The entire Corps needs to either be sent to Afghanistan to clear minefields or disbanded.

So9

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