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"No water bill without Corps of Engineers reform," group urges Senate
American Rivers President Rebecca R. Wodder today called on the Senate to block a huge water development bill unless it includes critical reforms of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Contact:
Melissa Samet, (415) 482-8150
Eric Eckl, (202) 347-7550 ext. 3023
"No water bill without Corps of Engineers reform," group urges Senate
(Washington, DC) - American Rivers President Rebecca R. Wodder today called on the Senate to block a huge water development bill unless it includes critical reforms of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
"Passing another water development bill without fundamentally changing the way the Corps does business would be a crime against taxpayers and the environment," Wodder said. "Congress must step in because the Corps has made it entirely clear that it is unwilling or unable to reform itself."
In its America's Most Endangered Rivers report, released in April 2002, American Rivers announced that the Corps has caused or contributed to the problems that put nearly 60% of the rivers on the annual list since its inception in 1986. Before the Corps is allowed to build any new locks, dams, levees, or other water projects, the conservation group said, Congress should ensure that those projects are economically sound and don't destroy the environment.
At a press conference held today prior to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizations, Wodder charged that, "The Corps has continued using outrageously flawed studies to justify costly, unnecessary and highly destructive projects."
She joined other conservation and taxpayer advocacy organizations in urging support for reforms proposed by Sens. Bob Smith (R-NH), Russell Feingold (D-WI), and John McCain (R-AZ). "Congress must not stand by and allow the Corps to continue to waste tax dollars on projects that destroy our nation's rivers, streams, and wetlands," Wodder said.
American Rivers called on the Senate to include key reforms in any bill authorizing further construction efforts by the Corps of Engineers, including the following.
| | - Costly or controversial projects should be reviewed by an independent panel of biologists, economists, and engineers to ensure that the Corps' analyses are sound, unbiased, and free of deceptive accounting practices intended to make a project appear more attractive or less damaging than it is.
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| | - Corps accounting practices should be changed to prohibit it from counting any private profit that results from damaging or destroying wetlands habitat towards the economic benefits of a proposed project.
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| | - The Corps should be required to complete full, timely, and ecologically sound mitigation, because far too frequently the agency fails to plan or follow through with promised mitigation for projects that destroy valuable wildlife habitat.
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| | - The Corps should be required to increase its accountability and provide ready access to information, particularly on the agency's progress towards completing promised mitigation, both for its own projects and for the private development projects for which it has issued permits.
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"The American people expect their government to accurately analyze proposed activities and provide honest information about them to Congress," Wodder said. "Congress must stop these abuses, and save our environment and our tax dollars from the Corps' shockingly flawed planning and decisionmaking processes."
For more information about American Rivers' efforts to secure common-sense reforms to the Corps of Engineers: http://www.americanrivers.org/armycorpsreform/default.htm
For the 2002 America's Most Endangered Rivers report and its description of the Corps of Engineers' past conduct: http://www.americanrivers.org/mostendangered2002/default.htm
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