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The Water Resources Coalition was established in
2007 to promote the development, implementation and funding of a
comprehensive national water resources policy. With member
organizations representing state and local governments,
conservation, engineering and construction, ports, waterways and
transportation services, the Coalition works to ensure that a
comprehensive, national water resources policy is developed,
implemented and funded to provide a sustainable, productive
economy; a healthy aquatic ecology; and public health and safety.
For more information, visit the Water Resources Coalition Web site
at www.waterresourcescoalition.org.
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Congressional Subcommittees
Criticizes Corps Budget
Members of the Water Resources and Environment
subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee renewed their attack on federal environmental regulations
at a hearing on the Fiscal Year 2012 budget of the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, Tennessee Valley Authority and the Natural Resources
Conservation Service.
Subcommittee members spent a large part of the hearing
criticizing the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) use of
rules under the Clean Water Act that would restrict certain
coal-mining practices and restore federal protections for wetlands
and other waters.The subcommittee also attacked the administration
for cutting federal spending for the Corps of Engineers.
"The FY 2012 budget request by the Administration
for the Corps of Engineers is $4.6 billion. This request is
six percent less than what [the administration proposed] in FY
2011, and is the lowest request since FY 2006," said Rep. Bob
Gibbs (R-OH), chair of the subcommittee. "Given the fact
that the navigation projects and the flood damage reduction
projects provide economic benefits to the nation, I would like to
see the Administration place a higher priority on these types of
job-creating water resources investments."
Several members of the subcommittee questioned whether
the $6.2 billion balance in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund is
available for dredging or is being used to balance the budget.
While $758 million will be available for dredging, many on the
panel found that funding level insufficient. Assistant
Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Jo-Ellen Darcy, then
acknowledged that the balance will be used for deficit reduction.
The House T&I Water Resources Subcommittee has
introduced legislation, H.R. 104, to create a firewall around the
Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to protect it. "Many of us
on this committee have long felt that the Harbor Maintenance Trust
Fund should be spent on harbor maintenance," Representative
Tim Bishop (D-NY) said. The legislation, H.R. 104, has already
gained 48 cosponsors.
Last week the Senate Environment and Public Works
Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a similar
hearing on the proposed FY 2012 budget for the Corps. The majority
of those on the Subcommittee believed that the budget falls far
short of making the needed investments in ports, waterways, levees,
and flood control projects. Chairman of the Subcommittee, Max
Baucus (D-MT) called the President's proposal vague and commented
on the lack of a plan to pay for such necessary improvements.
Assistant Secretary Darcy and Lt. General Robert Van
Antwerp acknowledged the needs, but stated that the agency must now
do the best with the budget that has been presented. During the
hearing Senator David Vitter (R-LA) heavily criticized the Army
Corps for what he deemed a failure to provided a single specific
recommendation on how to protect coastal Louisiana from another
Hurricane Katrina in the agency's $20 milion Louisiana Coastal
Protection and Restoration Report, while Senator John Barrasso
(R-WY) took aim the Corp's focus on sea-level rise as an effect of
climate-change.
In the end Senators urged Darcy and Van Antwerp to
invest more heavily in ports and waterways, especially given the
work underway to enlarge the Panama Canal by 2014.
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National
Research Council Releases Report on Corps
A National Research Council panel warns in a report
released on March 25th that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is
being asked to handle a growing list of complicated problems for
managing water resources projects while the budget continues to
shrink. The Corps asked the council to convene a committee to offer
advice on how the agency might continue to function with seemingly
unsustainable expectations. The report is the first in a series of
five that will examine aspects of the agency's annual $5 billion,
and shrinking, water resources program.
In the last two decades Congress has shifted the
Corps' focus from building large water resources projects to
rehabilitating aging ones. However, during this same period of
time Congress has added a wish list of levees, dams, and waterways
projects through legislation. The result is now a $59.6
billion backlog in authorized projects and billions more in unmet
maintenance needs. To make matters worse the Corps' Civil
Works Program has seen a 30 percent decline in staff since its peak
in 1983. The report concludes that long-lasting
implication will be that that "nation may have to
consider more flexible, innovative, and lower cost solutions to
achieving water-related objectives".
It should be noted that the challenges that the Corps
now faces are similar to those faced by the nation when it comes to
the infrastructure deficit. With requirements increasing, demands
building, and a lack of revenue to abate the problem infrastructure
needs will not be able to keep up with the demand.
To view the report: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13136
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Senators
Introduce Corps Reform Act
Senators Jim DeMint
(R-SC) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced S.573, the Corps
of Engineers Reform Act of 2011, on March 14th. The legislation
converts the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund into a
state-administered grant program with the Corps doling out funding
locally under general Corps oversight. Under the
reforms, project spending decisions would be made by state
officials making the program locally run and without the
possibility of congressional earmarks.
Title I of the
bill would establish a Harbor Maintenance Block Grant program
for states to explicitly use to carry out operations and
maintenance, investigations, site infrastructure improvements, and
new construction of projects pertaining to harbor maintenance or
deepening. Title II creates a new system for water
resources projects to be prioritized for funding from the Corps. It
establishes a non-paid eleven person panel, the Water Resources Commission,
to prioritize water resources projects for selection.
If the legislation
were to pass it would greatly alter the way the Corps selects and
funds projects pertaining to harbor maintenance and water
resources. Instead of relying on direction from Congress,
selections would be based on the recommendations of the newly
established Water Resources Commission.
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Reclamation
Releases Draft Directive and Standards
The Bureau of
Reclamation has released a draft Directive and Standards
document, which is posted for public review, in order to strengthen
its procedures for authorizing discharge of stormwater, treated
wastewater, and other non-agricultural waters into facilities that
are under the agency's jurisdiction.
The purpose of
this Directive and Standard is to help ensure that the quality
of non-agricultural waters discharged into Reclamation
facilities does not jeopardized the exemption from National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting
requirements, currently enjoyed by most Reclamation water
conveyances. The hope is for the procedures to help protect
the quality of water delivered to Reclamation's customers and
help ensure the uninterrupted operation of Reclamation
projects.
The document is posted for public review at http://www.usbr.gov/recman/drafts/env06-01webdraft.pdf
A questions
and answer information sheet is also available at http://www.usbr.gov/recman/drafts/env06-01webdraft.pdf
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Obama
Nominates Corps' Chief Engineer
President Obama
has nominated Army Lt. General Thomas Bostick as chief
engineer and commanding general for the Army Corps of
Engineers. Bostick is currently the deputy chief of staff for
the Army and would replace Lt. General Robert Van Antwerp, who has
held the position since 2007 and is retiring.
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US Water
Shortages Spreading From Climate Change
A report by Tetra Tech for the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC) finds that more than one- third of the
counties in the lower 48 states face higher risks of water
shortages by 2050 as a result of global warming. More than
400 of the total 1,100 counties will be at very high risk for water
shortages, according to the report.
The study used public data on current water
withdrawals for different sectors of the economy, such as
irrigation, cooling for power generation, and municipal supply, and
estimated future demands using business-as-usual scenarios of
growth. It compared these future withdrawals to a measure of
renewable water supply in 2050, based on a set of 16 global climate
model projections of temperature and precipitation, to identify
regions that may be stressed by water
availability.
The report finds that 14 states face an extreme or
high risk to water sustainability, or are likely to see limitations
on water availability as demand exceeds supply. The affected
counties are in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida,
Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico,
Oklahoma, and Texas.
The counties identified as being at greatest risk in
the report reflects a 14-times increase from previous
estimates. In addition, water withdrawal will grow by 25% in
many areas of the U.S. including the arid Arizona/New Mexico area,
the populated areas in the South Atlantic region, Florida, the
Mississippi River basin, and Washington, D.C. and surrounding
regions, according to the report.
A summary of the report and related links are
available at http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/watersustainability/files/WaterRisk.pdf.
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Federal
Court Allows Everglades Restoration to Continue
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may proceed with a
project to restore the natural hydrology of the Everglades despite
the need to reduce the size of a habitat critical to the
preservation of a single sparrow species, a federal court in
Washington ruled this week.
Environmentalists sued the Interior Department in an
effort to alter the critical habitat designation of the Cape Sable
seaside sparrow, a designation that resulted in smaller overall
habitat for the sparrow to enable the Corps to proceed with the
Comprehensive Environmental Restoration Plan (CERP) approved by
Congress in 2000. The smaller habitat would not result in the
sparrow's extinction, the department decided.
The CERP provides a framework and guide to restore,
protect and preserve the water resources of central and southern
Florida, including the Everglades. It covers 16 counties over
an 18,000-square-mile area and centers on an update of the Central
& Southern Florida (C&SF) Project.
The department evenhandedly assessed the overall needs
of the many species that would benefit from a restoration of the
Everglades' natural habitat against potential impact of a
restricted habitat for the Cape sparrow, the court ruled.
"The balance between designating a crucial swath
of critical habitat for the sparrow, a single species, and greater
flexibility for restoration of the Everglades to benefit the entire
ecosystem and its many inhabiting species, is left to the Secretary's
discretion as long as it does not result in extinction of the
species," the court ruled in Center for Biological
Diversity v. Salazar.
"CERP originates from the well-documented belief
that the restoration process will provide a substantial benefit to
the entire Everglades ecosystem, including the sparrow and other
endangered species."
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Following an 18-year court battle, five California
water districts have won the right to receive all of the water from
the Bureau of Reclamation that they were promised under their 1983
allocation contract with the bureau.
The Stockton East Water District, Central San Joaquin
Water Conservation District, San Joaquin County, the City of
Stockton, and the California Water Service Company provide
municipal, industrial, and agricultural water, as well as the
operation and maintenance of water facilities, within California's
San Joaquin Valley.
They signed an allocation contract with the bureau in
1983 but never received all of the water to which the contracts
entitled them when the bureau diverted about 25 percent of the
districts' annual allocations in order to preserve California
wildlife under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
In 1993, the water districts sued the Bureau of
Reclamation for a breach of contract over the appropriation of the
water after completion of California's second largest earthfill
dam, the New Melones Dam, which is part of the Central Valley
Project.
Following a tangled series of court proceedings, the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded in 2009
that the bureau had breached its contracts with the water
districts. The United States then sought a rehearing.
It argued that it should be allowed to prevent further evidence to
support the water diversion under the ESA.
The Court of Appeals granted the request but
reaffirmed its original ruling on March 18. "Our further
review leaves us fully satisfied that there was no absence of
evidence introduced by both sides on the critical questions on
which the case turns-what were the conditions that caused the
breach, was there a shortage of water in any of the years at issue,
caused by drought or otherwise, and ultimately who got what water
and when," the court concluded in Stockton East Water
District v. United States.
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ASBPA Advocates for Corps Programs
After a very successful Coastal Summit in March,
American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) members
were able to take the information they gathered on Capitol Hill
back home to their coastal communities. Much of this
information shed light on the highly anticipated 2011 Water
Resources Development Act (WRDA) bill. In preparation for
Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works' hearings on the
bill, ASBPA is drafting testimony that will help lawmakers craft a
bill that improves governance of America's many water resources.
This year, ASBPA is pushing Congress to increase the
use of the highly successful Regional Sediment Management (RSM)
program under the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Specifically,
ASBPA will recommend expanding the RSM program so it may
incorporate a greater range of local and regional planning
factors. This will increase the program's efficiency in
planning shore protection projects. In addition, ASBPA will
be encouraging Congress to direct the Corps to change the way
coastal protection projects are prioritized. We hope that the
Corps will adopt a method similar to the one used to prioritize
other important flood protection projects, such as levees and dams.
Coastal water resources do much more than enhance the economic
viability of a region. We hope that the Corps will adopt a
system that funds shore protection projects based on all of their
benefits to society, especially their ability to protect communities
from coastal storms, flooding, and erosion.
A common thread running through these considerations
is the concern for our Nation's growing deficit and crumbling water
infrastructure. A recent study by the Corps found that for
every $1 invested to mitigate coastal storm damage, there is a
savings of $7 in response and post-storm recovery costs.
ASBPA will continue to advocate for Corps programs that enhance
America's water resources while lowering the long-term costs
associated with these federal projects.
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Brian Pallasch and Marco Giamberardino
Water Resources Coalition
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