Tasty gator

It got its start in 1775 rebuilding fortifications at Bunker Hill for Gen. Washington. Its role was expanded to civilian projects in 1824 as a new nation set out to tame the West. Today, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is one of the largest and most unusual of federal agencies – part military, part environmental, part public works, with an ever-expanding mission and a growing stature as Congress’ favorite supplier of pork.

Also growing is evidence that the Corps is aggressively seeking new ways to expand beyond its traditional role of flood control and improving navigation and that numerous water mega-projects around the country are wasteful, unnecessary, ecologically disastrous and, in some cases, the result of flawed, even intentionally fudged, technical studies. This led a bipartisan group of senators to propose reform legislation. The reform effort fell short last week when a larger group of senators decided that the continued flow of federal dollars into their home states was more important than accountability.

The Senate reformers, led by Democrat Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and Republican Craig Thomas of Wyoming, proposed that the cost/benefit studies the Corps conducts to evaluate projects be subjected to independent review. This proposal came about after numerous situations were discovered in which Corps officials deliberately skewed studies to justify the pet projects of powerful congressional leaders.

Instead, the powerful congressional leaders prevailed. There will be no independent reviews for now, just a one-year study on how independent reviews might fit into the Corps’ existing structure. The chief proponents of this foregone conclusion, Republican Bob Smith of New Hampshire and Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, also promised to consider holding hearings on Corps reform at some vaguely defined time in the future.

Some of the most recent allegations of Corps misconduct suggest the future should be now. Top officials no longer deny an economic study was manipulated to justify billion-dollar lock expansions on the Upper Mississippi River. Environmental concerns about a dredging project for the Port of Baltimore were allayed with an analysis that concluded a canal flowed both directions at once. A flood-control project in Missouri passed the cost/benefit test only when an interest-rate projection developed during the Eisenhower administration was plugged into the formula. In Mississippi, home of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, the Corps has worked especially hard to make folks happy: highly questionable water projects have been put on the fast track so no questions could be asked; ways were found to skirt rules about local cost-sharing; projects that elsewhere are strictly local concerns, like expanding municipal water supplies, somehow became matters of vital national interest.

How did the reform of an agency so in need of it get shoved aside? The answer is obvious – the Everglades.

Restoring the Everglades is the project du jour and no concerns about waste, fraud and abuse will get in its way. The Corps drained South Florida’s River of Grass decades ago at Congress’ order, now it must put it back the way it was. Not quite the way it was, though. Instead of simply removing the thousands of levees, dams, culverts and channels built to control the swamp, the Corps proposes building new levees, dams, culverts and channels to create a full-sized replica of the Everglades as it used to be, sort of a Disneyglades. The $7.8 billion bill to do this includes, coincidentally, money for 22 other water projects in other states and for studies, without independent reviews, for 35 new ones.

Still, it was heartening to hear during the debate last Thursday the abiding fondness senators have for the Everglades. It was especially touching to hear the deep affection senators, whether from the rocky hills of New Hampshire or the Big Sky country of Montana, expressed for the Everglades signature creature, the alligator. Must taste a lot like pork.