Corps criticized for too many studies

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

Sen. David Vitter this week took the Army Corps of Engineers to task for what he called the slow pace of levee work in south Louisiana.

The corps “studies things to death, in general,” Vitter is quoted as saying in a story by The Associated Press.

He’s not the first one to say the corps spends too much time studying and not enough time building. Many people across the country have voiced similar frustrations.

Ed Townsend, a blogger in New York, complained about corps studies in a Sept. 25 column. Townsend said corps officials on Sept. 12 toured sites in Sullivan and Delaware counties, where flash flooding June 19, 2007, damaged homes and businesses . Following the tour, the corps said a major flood study is needed, Townsend said.

“How many studies and millions of dollars are needed to bring relief from overflowing creeks and rivers, washed out roads, damaged homes and businesses’ and loss of life?” Townsend wrote. “There is a list of politicians and others a mile long that continue to call for study after study but is there any real relief at the end of the rainbow?”

An Aug. 19, 2007, story by The New York Times said Mayor Louis V. D’Arminio of Saddle Brook, N.J., was putting pressure on the corps to expedite a dredging project on the Lower Saddle River basin. In April 2007, the river overflowed, and low-lying areas flooded.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Mr. D’Arminio of Saddle Brook says the corps of engineers has failed to deliver on a 1996 plan — which had a price tag then of $90.6 million — to dredge 5.2 miles of the Saddle River and reduce the likelihood of flooding.

Officials of the corps said in a July 2 letter that a reassessment of the plan was being completed using data from the last flood and that a new design encompassing changes in the project would cost $1 million. The corps’ manager for the project, Daniel Falt, estimated the current cost of the overall plan at $113 million.

Before it can begin, the state would have to clean up pollutants — estimated at $20 million in 1996, according to Mr. Falt, and as much as $30 million today, according to Mr. D’Arminio.

Mr. D’Arminio said the corps of engineers should stop studying the plan and start putting it into effect. “We want public service instead of lip service,” he said.•