In the speech below, Assistant Secretary for the US Army Corps of Engineers has surprisingly harsh words to say about the way water projects in the US are chosen and funded by Congress.

Posted to Sandy Rosenthal’s blog, url: www.levees.org 2-1-07

Wednesday, January 24, 2007
WATER: Woodley details long list of problems in water policy arena
Lucy Kafanov, E&ENews PM reporter

Look no further than Army Assistant Secretary John Paul Woodley for a candid assessment of the problems facing the water resources sector.

Woodley yesterday outlined a laundry list of problems, from confusion about the scope of federal jurisdiction, to faulty federal decisions, to questions about the way water infrastructure projects are authorized.

Both in private comments and in a speech made before the American Water Resources Association convention in Arlington, Va., Woodley talked about what he saw as ongoing confusion among officials about the role the federal government is to play in water resource development.

"Most, if not all, issues I deal with on a daily basis stem from this problem," Woodley said. "And the effort to define that role has spawned some of America’s greatest controversies and some of its greatest institutions."

Woodley criticized the White House budget proposals over the past several years for including language that identifies "the so-called backlog of federal water projects as the number one problem in the area of water resource development." He jokingly said he respects the budget proposals of all current and past presidents as "the most perfect documents" he has ever seen.

He said identifying the backlog of projects as the No. 1 problem implies water resource development is a closed-end federal committment.

"It is a state of mind that believes that you always have to be current with water resource development projects … which is a remarkable state of mind for a federal agency that is a product of the lack of consensus and comfort that exists over the federal role in water resource development," Woodley said.

Woodley also took issue with the federal decisionmaking process for planning, formulating, authorizing and funding water resource development projects, calling it "profoundly flawed."

The process will gain more attention when the Army Corps of Engineers releases two post-Hurricane Katrina reports within the next two months, he said. The first report will be an interagency evaluation of the engineering problems and is regarded to be relatively noncontroversial. But Woodley called the second, the "Hurricane Katrina Protection Decision Chronology," an "explosive document" that details all of the federal decisions that led to the breakdown of the New Orleans levee system.

The need for corps reform was another big issue for the Army secretary. Talking about independent project review proposals floating about in Congress, Woodley suggested that such a process "ought to be undertaken with full federal expense."

Rejecting proposals that call for the corps to conduct feasibility studies, environmental impact assessments and cost estimates before an independent panel weighs in, Woodley called for a dynamic process that allows review at every stage of the project planning process.

Woodley also took a direct swing at legislative proposals that call for review of all controversial corps projects, prompting laughs from the audience when he asked whether anyone has ever heard of a corps project that is not controversial.

"We should be looking for a modern concept of independent review, 21st century review," he said.

Woodley also spoke, somewhat incredulously, about the concept of annual funding of water resources projects through appropriations.

"Do you know of any other institution responsible for any kind of construction that treats the decision to build a 10 year project as 10 discreet decisions independently arrived at to build this year’s portion?" Woodley asked. "Why? Because it’s silly."

"But that is exactly how I have discovered three years ago the corps is funded for water resources development, which I think is a flaw," he added.

Woodley takes on WRDA

Woodley also talked yesterday about some of his concerns and hopes for the Water Resources Development Act, stalled in Congress since 2000.

The White House last outlined its views on WRDA in a September 2006 letter penned by Woodley and sent to the chairmen of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Woodley said he was told last week that the views expressed in that letter remain current as of yesterday (E&E Daily <http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/2006/09/25/archive/2/ > , Sept 26, 2006).

While the letter predominantly focuses on the Bush administration’s concerns about the high pricetag of the bill, Woodley explained that the White House is more interested in the sorts of projects that make it into WRDA.

"Our concern is in part cost, but it is more profoundly about the type of project that is going forward," Woodley said. "Many of the authorizations either are for projects that do not have approved feasibility-level studies or are essentially environmental infrastructure-type projects intended to aid localities."

Such water quality projects, which could include sewage or drinking water treatment plans, tend to feature prominently in the House version of the WRDA bill and were speculated to have held up conference negotiations in 2006.

"We do feel there is a place for that at some level in the federal government, but it really ought to be managed by the Environmental Protection Agency," Woodley said. "When it is put into under the corps, which is an engineering and construction agency, it isn’t a good fit."

When asked whether he was confident that the House would take the White House concerns to heart when crafting WRDA 2007, Woodley said he was "cautiously optimistic." He has met with T&I Water Resources Subcommittee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), who indicated that she was interested in working closely with the administration.

But Johnson had a somewhat different take on her priorities. While she confirmed having met with Woodley and expressed interest in working with him, she said the House focus on environmental infrastructure needs to stay.

"All we can do is respond to the needs of this nation," Johnson said in an interview yesterday. "We have to do something about our aging infrastructure, we have to protect clean water, and I don’t know what other way we can do it."

Woodley also talked about the need for a watershed approach to corps projects, echoing comments made Monday by Army Corps commander Lt. Gen. Carl Strock. He proposed creating interstate compacts or regional planning groups that would bring together leaders from all the jurisdictions to "balance these conflicting issues and to establish priorities."

While such a step would require authority from Congress, Woodley pointed out that the 2006 appropriations provided the agency with limited authority to do just that in some areas.

"I think that this would be a very interesting answer to some of these problems of how everything in water policy is so fragmented and how agencies are too turf conscious," Woodley said.