U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity For Service

123 Pages·2004·2.73 MB·English

by  Coordinating Committee, Committee to Assess the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Methods of Analysis and

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources

Planning: A New Opportunity for Service

Coordinating Committee, Committee to Assess the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers Methods of Analysis and Peer

Review for Water Resources Project Planning, National
Research Council

ISBN: 0-309-09222-1, 122 pages, 6x9, (2004)

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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10975.html
U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS
WATER RESOURCES PLANNING
A NEW OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE
Coordinating Committee
Committee to Assess the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Methods of
Analysis and Peer Review for Water Resources Project Planning
Water Science and Technology Board
Ocean Studies Board
Division on Earth and Life Studies
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10975.html
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by
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are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the
National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The
members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for
their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.

Support for this project was provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
under contract no. DACW72-01-C-0001. Any opinions, findings,
conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the
author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the organizations or
agencies that provided support for the project.

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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10975.html

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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10975.html

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10975.html

COMMITTEE TO ASSESS THE U.S. ARMY CORPS OF
ENGINEERS METHODS OF ANALYSIS AND PEER REVIEW FOR
WATER RESOURCES PROJECT PLANNING

∗
COORDINATING COMMITTEE

LEONARD SHABMAN, Chair, Resources for the Future, Washington,
D.C.
GREGORY B. BAECHER, University of Maryland, College Park
DONALD F. BOESCH, University of Maryland, Center for Environmental
Estuarine Studies, Cambridge
ROBERT W. HOWARTH, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (through
November 2002)
GERALDINE KNATZ, Port of Long Beach, California
JAMES K. MITCHELL, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University, Blacksburg
LARRY A. ROESNER, Colorado State University, Fort Collins (through
August 2003)
A. DAN TARLOCK, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Chicago, Illinois
VICTORIA J. TSCHINKEL, The Nature Conservancy, Altamonte Springs,
Florida
JAMES G. WENZEL, Marine Development Associates, Saratoga,
California
M. GORDON WOLMAN, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

National Research Council Staff

JEFFREY W. JACOBS, Study Director
ELLEN A. DE GUZMAN, Research Associate

∗
The coordinating committee and four panels were organized and overseen by the National
Academies’ Water Science and Technology Board (lead) and Ocean Studies Board to carry out
studies mandated in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000. The members of the two
boards and these panels are listed in Appendix C.

v
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10975.html

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10975.html
Foreword

In the early 1800s the U.S. Congress first asked the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers (which was created in 1775) to improve navigation on our
waterways. From that beginning, the Corps began a program of public
works that has reshaped virtually all of the nation’s river basins and
coastal areas. Today we share in the benefits of those works: a reliable
water transportation network, harbors that help link our economy to
global markets, previously flood-prone land that is productive for urban
and agricultural uses, hydroelectric power, and widely used recreational
facilities.
Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Corps’ pro-
gram is under intense scrutiny. Traditional constituencies press the
Corps to complete projects that have been planned for many years and
campaign for new projects to serve traditional flood control and naviga-
tion purposes. At the same time, environmental and taxpayer groups ex-
press concerns about these projects in Congress and in the courts. Some
of these groups have exposed technical errors in analyses that have been
used to justify projects. For these critics, the Corps’ water project devel-
opment program must be reformed and the budget reduced or redirected.
Some of these same groups are pressing the administration,
Congress, and the agency itself toward a new Corps mission, broadly
described as environmental restoration. However, the concept of restora-
tion awaits more precise definition, and the science of ecosystem restora-
tion is in its infancy. Nevertheless, it is clear that restoration is a call for
water resources management that accommodates and benefits from,
rather than controls, annual and multiyear variability in the patterns and
timing of river flows and the extremes of flood and drought.
Meanwhile, the Corps is affected by a general trend in all federal
agencies toward smaller budgets and staffs. As demands for reform
mount, the Corps’ current staffing and organization may have to be re-
configured to provide improved and more credible planning reports.
As a result of this national debate over the Corps’ programs and the
quality of its planning studies, the U.S. Congress in Section 216 of the
vii
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10975.html
vi Foreword

2000 Water Resources Development Act, requested that the National
Academies conduct a study of procedures for reviewing the Corps’ plan-
ning studies. In addition, Congress requested a review of the “methods
of analysis” used in Corps water resources planning.
In response to this request, the Water Science and Technology Board
of the National Academies’ National Research Council (NRC), in col-
laboration with the NRC’s Ocean Studies Board, appointed four study
panels to assess (1) peer review, (2) planning methods, (3) river basin and
coastal systems planning, and (4) resource stewardship and adaptive manage-
ment, along with a coordinating committee to follow these panels’ progress
and to write a synthesis report.
Our study panels and coordinating committee held several meetings
over the course of the study period beginning in 2001. We spoke with
dozens of Corps of Engineers personnel, visited several Corps projects,
and heard from different groups with interests in Corps projects. We
came away with an appreciation for the dedication of Corps personnel
and the complications and challenges they face in trying to be responsive
to local project sponsors and the nation’s taxpayers.
This is not the first study of the Corps by the National Academies.
However, past studies were often focused on specific projects or on par-
ticular planning aspects. The reports in this series address the agency’s
programs in a wider context. Because we appreciate the importance of
the U.S. Congress and the sitting administration in directing Corps pro-
grams, many of our recommendations are directed to them.
The Corps has a long history of serving the nation and is one of our
oldest and most recognized federal agencies, but it is today at an impor-
tant crossroads. The nation, through the administration and Congress,
must help the agency chart its way for the next century.

Leonard Shabman
Chair, Cordinating Commite

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Water Resources Planning: A New Opportunity for Service
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10975.html
Preface

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has planned for and built many
of the dams, levees, and channels that today control the flow of the na-
tion’s rivers and that maintain navigable depths for its ports and harbors.
Today, inland and deep-draft navigation contributes to the U.S. and in-
ternational economies. Projects that mitigate flood flows and coastal
storm surges allow human activity in areas that were once uninhabitable.
Corps projects generate hydroelectric power, provide water supply stor-
age for rural and urban areas, and support extensive water-based and
coastal recreation opportunities. In the past three decades, the Corps has
included environmental protection and aquatic ecosystem restoration ob-
jectives in its water project planning and development program. There is
widespread recognition and appreciation of the benefits provided by
Corps of Engineers programs. However, at the turn of twenty-first cen-
tury the Corps finds itself with a shrinking budget and in the midst of
numerous water planning and management controversies, even as many
members of the public and in the Congress continue to hold the agency
and its programs in high regard.
In Section 216 of the Water Resources Development Act of 2000,
the U.S. Congress asked The National Academies to review Corps plan-
ning and project review practices (the Foreword to this report explains
the overall structure of the “216 studies”). This report recommends a
new planning authority that will allow the Corps to better meet emerging
national water management challenges. This authority, if executed ac-
cording to this report’s recommendations, will help ensure that
operations of the engineering works along the nation’s rivers and coasts
are integrated with new project investments and are responsive to
emerging demands on the nation’s aquatic environment. Planning in ac-
cord with this authority should help streamline decision making proc-
esses that are today often bound with conflict.
In developing this report, the coordinating committee benefited from
participation in the deliberations of the panels on Peer Review, Planning
ix
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.