Former Army Corps official calls for review panel

The Army Corps of Engineers should resurrect a 90-year-old agency panel that reviewed major Corps projects, according to a former panel member.

Created by Congress in 1902 and comprised of seven senior Corps officials, the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors reviewed proposed large-scale navigation projects before Congress eliminated the panel in 1992. An advisory staff, also composed of Corps employees, sought input from outside experts, prepared studies on the projects and submitted their findings to the board for review. Although the board was made up of Corps officials, panel members were supposed to conduct independent reviews of proposed projects. The board carefully examined studies, according to Bennett Lewis, who retired as a deputy secretary in the Defense Department and earlier served as the North Atlantic division engineer in the Corps. "Projects came under tough scrutiny by the board, and the board made sure that any problems that surfaced were reviewed," said Lewis. "We turned away many projects." Lewis served on the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors for about two years. Lewis criticized proposed legislation that would give stakeholders in Army Corps projects a larger role in the current review process. The Army Corps Reform Act of 2001, introduced in March by Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., in the House and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., in the Senate, calls for the creation of a stakeholder advisory committee and an independent panel of experts that would review controversial projects and projects costing more than $25 million. Although Lewis acknowledged the importance of outside review for Corps projects, he warned against stakeholder bias tainting the decision-making process. Lewis said it is ultimately the task of the Corps' leadership, not stakeholders, to correct problems. "The proposed legislation, if enacted, could very likely create more problems than it solves," said Lewis. "The stakeholder committee will provide an entry point for politicians at all levels to improperly influence decisions." Laura Cimo, a liaison in Kind's office for the Upper Mississippi Task Force, helped craft the proposed legislation and said the stakeholder committee would not have decision-making authority, but would serve in an advisory capacity. "Even though the stakeholder committee is not given any authority, the hope [behind the legislation] is that the Secretary of the Army will take its suggestions into account," she said. The renewed interest in a review panel for major Corps projects stemmed from concern over the way the Corps conducts its business. In November, the Army inspector general concluded that Corps officials had manipulated project data in the Upper Mississippi River project.

Congress eliminated the Board of Rivers and Harbors in the 1992 Water Resources Development Act because it became ineffective, according to David Cherry, press secretary for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. "My understanding of the situation was that the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors was inactive at that point," he said. Steve Ellis, director of water resources at the advocacy group Taxpayers for Common Sense, agreed that some thought the panel had lost its effectiveness by the 1980s. "I think Congress and the administration began to view it [the board] as just another bureaucratic layer," he said. The Corps no longer has an internal panel like the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors to review projects, according to Corps spokesman Homer Perkins. After Congress authorizes a project, the Corps conducts a feasibility study that includes cost-benefit analyses and input from stakeholders and the public, said Perkins.

"Much of that work is done at the district level by the district engineer," said Perkins. The district engineer submits interim progress reports on the project, and eventually a final report, to the division engineer. The division engineer then submits a report to the Chief of Engineers at Corps headquarters. If the project is approved at all three of these levels and by the administration, it goes back to Congress for consideration.