Implications of proposed 2010 Corps budget
in Uncategorized by Admin — May 11, 2009 at 10:40 am | 10 comments
Corps-designed surge barrier and pump station for NOLA drainage canal
I just received the following notice about the proposed Obama FY 2010 budget for the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), which should be of great interest to all readers concerned about the future of coastal Louisiana. This future is inexorably tied to the USACE in that, like it or not, all major planning efforts and funding mechanisms envision the corps as the primary partner with the state. Note that this is a proposed budget only, subject to dramatic congressional modification.
Corps-designed Caernarvon project to drain up to 8,000 cfs of river water into the Breton Sound area
I find it curious that Everglades restoration and other ecosystem restoration efforts in south Florida are singled out by name, while the more ambitious coastal protection and restoration projects for Louisiana are not. I wonder whether this reflects White House priorities and/or the very different political nuances in recent statements by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Specific items that I think are worth noting are in boldface type and my editorial comments are shown in green:
White House Releases FY2010 Corps of Engineers Budget Proposal
The Obama administration has released details of the Army Corps of Engineers budget for fiscal year 2010. The proposal would cut funding by $300 million, from $5.4 billion in 2009 to $5.1 billion. Details of the budget proposal are as follows:
* Construction: $1.7 billion. This represents a decrease from $2 billion in 2009, representing the biggest cut in the proposal. (This has obvious implications for the promised completion by 2011 of the NOLA 1%/year risk storm protection system).
* Everglades restoration projects would get $155 million, with another $60 million going to otherecosystem restoration work in south Florida. (Actually, the amount allocated for S. Florida is modest and not in the billion dollar range of our needs).
* The budget proposal would reallocate funds from what it calls low-performing construction projects to projects that have a substantial positive economic and/or environmental return. These would be projects that have been ranked based upon benefit-cost ratios of 2.5 or higher. Low return projects, and those with a non-federal interest, such as recreation, would not be funded. The budget would support multiple-purpose projects that integrate environmental principles into traditional infrastructure efforts. (This sounds relevant in terms of Louisiana coastal protection and restoration).
* The proposal would terminate funding for environmental infrastructure projects,asserting that these projects are outside the Corps of Engineers’ main mission areas of commercial navigation, flood and storm damage reduction, and significant aquatic ecosystem restoration. (I don’t know what environmental infrastructure projects include, hopefully not river diversion structures).
* Inland Waterways Trust Fund: the budget proposes the adoption of an alternative funding source to replace the current fuel tax, but does not provide a specific proposal, beyond the earlier proposal to implement a lock usage fee. (This has implications for Louisiana in that lack of maintenance of the ICWW across our coast is causing serious problems).
* Operations and Maintenance: $2.5 billion. This would be an increase from the FY2009 $2.2 billion allocation.
* Channel and harbor maintenance: $1.1 billion, an increase of $100 million from $982 million in 2009. (The New Orleans district is the largest “customer” for this item, in terms of maintenance of a 45 foot depth channel in the lower Mississippi River).
* Locks and dams maintenance: $580 million, increased from $400 million in 2009. (Obama could cut the corps budget here if Bennett Johnston’s Red River Folly were dismantled).
* Reservoir maintenance: $575 million, up from $425 million in 2009. (This could theoretically include feasibility studies to move Missouri River sediments downstream from the reservoirs that are filling up with sediments that could restore our coast).
* Channel improvements would remain at the FY2009 funding level of $43 million.
* Multi-purpose power projects would see a slight increase from $690 million to $770 million.
* Mississippi River and Tributaries: $248 million. This would be a decrease from $384 million in FY2009. (MR&T is a program under which modifications to the management of the lower river that are critical to Louisiana interests could be authorized).
* $5 million for the Yazoo Basin, Yazoo Backwater Pumping Plant in Mississippi.
* $8 million for the construction of water withdrawal features of the Grand Prairie, Arkansas project.
* Investigations: $100 million, which is a decrease of $68 million to fund studies for Corps’ projects. (This could be a huge concern in that protecting and restoring the Louisiana coast includes many technical uncertainties and needs for feasibiity studies. For example, a new paradigm for river management will be contingent on advanced river hydraulics and modeling studies).
* Regulatory program: $190 million, up slightly from FY2009’s $183 million. (This could theoretically benefit Louisiana in terms of allowing the corps to enhance their watchdog role over wetland permitting projects such as logging of coastal forests under the Rivers and Harbors Act).
* Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program: $134 million, representing a decrease of $6 million.
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Len Bahr
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10 Comments
2009-07-21
14:22:18
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2009-05-14
20:24:58
Tom Jackson has appeared to have changed his mind. Here is an older email exchange [unretouched] between Tom and Mark Schleifstein as Mark responded to a HJ Bosworth Jr's email taking issue with Maj Gen Don Riley who was publicly furthering the "Myth of how the locals interfered with the Corps of Engineers grand plan for barrier structures and canal closures."
--------------------
Mark:
As best as my memory serves me, you have it right.
Tom Jackson
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Schleifstein
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 7:51 PM
To: Sandy Rosenthal; H.J. Bosworth
Cc: Carlton Dufrechou ; David Richards O'Reilly; Gordon Boutwell; Ivor van Heerden; Luke Ehrensing; Mark Schleifstein; Paul Kemp; Bob Bea; Thomas L. Jackson
Subject: Re: Keynote Speech at Corps Reform Network (CRN) annual meeting
Correct me if I'M wrong, as I did not hear Riley, and am unsure of exactly
what he said.
However, based on various confusions I've heard in the past, here's MY
understanding of the "truth."
Incident 1 is the barrier plan/high level plan debate involving gates at the
Chef and Rigolets passes. Corps chose barrier, suit filed by enviros (AND
Tammany!) saying you didn't look at alternatives, corps waits 8 years to
respond to judge's requirement for alternatives (The judge specifically
didn't rule in favor of the high level plan) In the meantime, Clean Water
Act makes Orlandia impossible to develop, and the benefit of the corps
cost-benefit disappears. On further review, corps finds high level is more
cost effective (And corps rules then still didn't count human lives).
Fast forward to incident 2, frontal protection/parallel protection on the
drainage canals.
Corps recommends butterfly gate structures that would be self-closing and
self-opening. Corps rules say local sponsor pays 25 pct of cost of "the
project." SWB is concerned about the butterfly gates staying closed and
existing walls being overtopped. Levee district looks at alternative and
realizes their 25 percent of the gates leaves unsaid that they'll be
required to pay 100 pct of the cost of raising what will become interior
walls on canals. They balk. Congressional delgation backs them. However, at
the same time, corps again looks at the relative costs and finds the cost of
parallel protection to be more economical, and higher walls are built.
In both cases, the corps made the final decisions and approved designs of
the ultimate construction. In both cases, the corps never said it was
approving the projects under protest, or refused to approve them because of
concerns they would not work.
In the same timeframe, the corps ALSO approved dredging of 17th Street
Canal.
Did I get that right?
2009-05-14
17:51:40
Ye olde history is indeed interesting to read; as at the link provided above by Tom and repeated here:
http://lacoastpost.com/blog/?p=5376
And also this link recently found on The New Orleans Ladder's site; regarding water management in New Orleans over the years; also repeated here:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/P...
2009-05-13
09:48:00
Tom, Your substandard engineering broke because it was built wrong. Who built it Wrong, Tom? Suck it up and get past trying to spin the causes of that catastrophic failure away from the engineers who screwed the pooch. Admit it. Some of that engineering even failed BEFORE design capacity.
This happened on 8/29/05.
Tom, since you have spent most of your career working around the Corps and on Corps projects, can you tell us who put those flood walls on Bad Soil?
Tom Jackson, did you work on any of these Failed Canals and/or Flood walls?
Your "barrier option" is such a dead herring because so many died due to the substandard engineering in those canal flood walls. Who did that, Tom? Did politicians sign-off on that engineering? If so, then who? Give us their names since you seem so knowledgeable about that time.
Stick to the engineering, leave the politics to the politicians at ASCECORPS and leave the PR Messaging to the Corps Spin'filtraitors at OPP.
And while you are at it, please do this surviving tax-payer a favor and resign from the Levee Board, give back your freaking Outstanding Civilian Service Medal to the Corps.
"The task force found that the ultimate value of post-disaster engineering reviews to society is directly linked to their credibility and credibility rests in large part on the removal of real or perceived conflicts of interest," the report said.
http://www.nola.com/national/t-p/index.ssf?/base/...
http://www.pubs.asce.org/magazines/ascenews/2007/...
In short, either get to the bottom of this catastrophic engineering failure or get out of the way.
And, No, there are no 2nd chances in catastrophic engineering failure. Sorry, Tom.
No "Get Out of Jail Free" card.
2009-05-13
03:16:12
Tom,
The Corps frequently blames New Orleans residents for the flooding by saying environmentalists filed lawsuit and blocked a plan for barrier structures therefore causing the horrific flooding in New Orleans after the 2005 Hurricane.
There is no evidence to support this assertion.
Federal Judge Stanwood Duval's January 30, 2008 made specific statements on this very issue.
Between 1970-75, the Corps of Engineers designed plans for barrier structures for The Rigolets, Chef Menteur Pass and the Seabrook lock. On Dec 8, 1975, Luke Fontana with Save our Wetlands filed suit against the Barrier Plan.
On Dec 7, 1977, the Court prohibited the Barrier Plan implementation "citing inadequacies in the District EIS (Environmental Impact Study) analysis of the surge barrier effects on lake salinity regimes and habitat."
Four months later, levees and floodwalls were allowed elsewhere in the New Orleans vicinity, but Chef Menteur Pass, the Rigolets, and the Seabrook Lock was prohibited.
Fast forward to Apr 1978 – Feb 1980. The Corps "approved the project restudy plan" to spend 3 years addressing deficiencies in Environmental Impact Study.
Finally, in June 1980, the Corps concluded the High Level Plan (higher levees) providing hurricane protection, was less costly, less damaging to the environment, and more acceptable than the Barrier Plan.
[Source: pages 6-12 Dismissal Order]
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nationa...
Conclusion: The Corps of Engineers concluded that higher levees was less costly and less damaging to the environment, and more acceptable. There is no evidence of the Corps being coerced to do anything outside its will.
Note: A statement by a federal judge in a court case can most certainly be introduced as fact.
2009-05-13
02:14:04
Dear Sandy et al.,
With all due respect, you are missing the point. Do you like your family doctor to prescribe your son/daughter the second best medication to save his/her life? Engineering mistakes happen all the time in all branches of engineering. That’s why they suggest the best option. Why are we ok with the gates now? Some day a lot people will die around the North Shore Lake Pontchartrain. Do you know why? Please ask Luke Fontana and his friends.
As for the history of canal failures and 8/29 investigation you need a few names, please read the following posting -
http://lacoastpost.com/blog/?p=5376
Fargo, Dallas, New Orleans and the Corps of Engineers
Tom Jackson
New Orleans
2009-05-12
21:21:37
Tom,
When exactly are civil engineers not responsible for the safety of their designs? When does one get a special "that's not your fault" pass from a client when a civil engineer's design fails and over 1000 people die? Does ASCE Manual No. 73 ever say that if a project is something you never wanted to do, you have no liability for the safety of the public?
That said, you are essentially re-writing history by misquoting the Energy and Appropriations Act of 1992. See the encircled section on Page 4.
http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/inside/products/pub...
Your statements are also inconsistent with the truth according to the Decision-making Chronology for the Lake Pontchartrain & Vicinity Hurricane Protection project (page 82).
http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/inside/products/pub...
Here's what really happened: In the 1980s, the Corps developed a design for a prototype butterfly valve gate for the 17th Street, London and Orleans Avenue canals that, once closed, would not allow drainage flow into the lake because the gates had no auxilliary pumps like those that are now in place in Lakeview New Orleans today. That meant closing the gates in a hurricane could cause severe overtopping of the outfall canal walls from pumped rainwater .
The SWB realized that if the gates were installed, then the locals must raise the height of the canal walls and would have to pay 100%. So the OLB pressured the LA delegation to pressure Congress to place the outfall canals under the federal Hurricane Flood Protections. The plan worked, meaning the local sponsor must pay 30 percent instead of 100%.
Meanwhile, the Corps again looked at the relative costs and found that the cost of parallel protection (higher canal walls) was more economical, and decided to build the higher walls. And not to build the gates. The Corps never said it was approving any projects under protest, or refused to approve them because of concerns they would not work.
HJ Bosworth Jr.
Sandy Rosenthal
Levees.Org
2009-05-12
20:44:44
Oh-oh....I gather that there may be other "shadows" lurking in the background to help "encourage" some projects along..... ie, "forced...."
Kind of like "walking the plank...." and then these "shadows" kinda sorta disappear when its time to play pin the blame........
Round and round we go; where it stops nobody knows.....
2009-05-12
02:05:40
Len,
Note that the MRGO was not Corps’ idea either. Steam Boat Association, New Orleans Port Authority (Mr. Lester Alexander) pushed MRGO for over 20 years. Finally, they managed to get it through the Congress. Then the Louisiana Gov, both the La US Senators worked very hard make sure that MRGO is a reality. Similarly, Orleans Levee District, La congressional delegations passed law that made Corps give up “barrier option” for those three drainage canals. For local average people it was devastating but it was a brilliant idea. Now, Louisiana is getting billions of dollars for Corps’ “mistakes”. Politics is a very effective way to pass blame to Corps. One of the most important recommendations of the Louisiana State Master plan is to “federalize” other levees built by locals. So that next time they fail, it would Corps’s fault.
Tom Jackson
New Orleans
2009-05-11
21:55:33
I'm posting the following helpful emailed comment without attribution because the author may not want to be identified.
Len,
> Environmental infrastructure projects refers to sewerage and water treatment system projects. Congress forced multiple such projects down the corps throat last year and Woodley has been adamantly against expanding the corps mission to include them. Note, however, that a first step down that path was the decision -- again forced down the corps throat -- to fund SELA projects for interior drainage in New Orleans after the May 8, 1995, rainfall flood.