When the New Orleans levees breached in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and flooded 80 percent of the city, eyes in Washington turned to Steve Ellis.
Ellis officially is the vice president of programs for the nonprofit budget watchdog, Taxpayers for Common Sense. But more significantly, Ellis is regarded as the biggest critic of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that manages the levees and the nation's flood control programs.
Over the past six years, the former Coast Guard veteran has preached that the corps has poured much of its roughly $5 billion a year allocation into "pork" projects requested by members of Congress at the behest of the maritime industry instead of more-important endeavors such as New Orleans flood control.
Despite the corps spending $123 billion on projects over the past 50 years, the nation's overall average annual flood damage has more than doubled in real dollars, rising from more than $2.6 billion per year in the first half of the 20th century to more than $6 billion in the past 10 years, Ellis said.
"It means our system isn't working very well," Ellis said. "It goes beyond the state of Louisiana, this is national."
Corps officials declined to address the assertions by Ellis.
"At this moment, we're not going to do any second-guessing at what happened," corps spokesman David Hewitt said.
Last year Ellis, along with the National Wildlife Federation, produced a report listing what they considered America's biggest corps boondoggles. Ranked fifth on the list was the Industrial Canal Lock Replacement in New Orleans.
Five years ago, the corps launched the construction of a $748 million replacement of the Industrial Canal Lock with a longer, wider and deeper lock. The canal connects the Mississippi River to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a little-used alternative to the Mississippi River itself.
To date, Congress has appropriated $79 million to the project. Ellis said there is one problem. Although the corps used predictions of a 50 percent increase in barge traffic, in reality barge traffic has decreased by 50 percent, he said.
"I don't know how much $79 million would have shored up the levees," Ellis said. "But I can't help to think here's a case where we had skewed priorities."
The lock project is supported by U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. U.S. Rep. Bill Jefferson, D-New Orleans, in whose district the project lies, also backs the plan.
Vitter, who sits on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called the project fully justified.
"I think it's vital for navigation and commerce," Vitter said.
Likewise, Landrieu said the project has national implications.
"Although the lock is in New Orleans, it serves the whole maritime industry in the country," Landrieu said. "To call it a 'pork project' isn't fair. It's not a local project."
Gary LaGrange agrees. The president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans acknowledges that barge traffic is down "slightly," but the larger lock is necessary to relieve barge bottlenecks and to serve as the east-west maritime corridor.
"It's on our Top 10 lists of projects that should be done," LaGrange said.
Ellis said that such projects are pushed by lobbying groups such as the American Waterway Operators or Dredging Contractors of America. Flood-control projects lack a similar voice, he said.
"What is the determinant on whether you get your funds is the political muscle you have," Ellis said. "Congress has 535 mouths to feed, and everyone has their constituents who want a project, and they try to deliver."
New Orleans is a good example of how the system fails, Ellis said. In the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project and the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project, which directly affects the levees that breached, projected corps costs were $477.6 million since 2002. During that same period, Congress has enacted $212.4 million, or less than half.
Landrieu lobbied for the flood protection. She produced a letter to the Bush administration from earlier in the year requesting full funding for the projects next year. A return letter from the administration stated that the budget priority for next year was the war in Iraq.
When asked whether the lack of funding for the project played a role in the hurricane flooding, Landrieu responded: "Absolutely. We would have been in much better shape."
Ellis sees re-establishing an independent panel to review corps projects as a solution to the problem. Until the Reagan Administration, all corps proposals were reviewed by the Water Resources Council, a four-member board that Reagan disbanded.
"The lack of priorities is killing us, literally," Ellis said. "When you don't make something a priority, everything is a priority, and you waste."
Even staunch corps backers such as former U.S. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., acknowledge that the agency is in a tough political position.
"It's not the corps that approves the projects," said Johnston, who chaired the Senate Energy and Water Committee. "It's the Congress and the administration."
Although Ellis is the corps' most vocal critic, his goal is to improve the agency, he said.
"Nobody becomes a movie critic because they hate the movies," he said. "They become a movie critic because they love the movies. I have a lot of respect for the corps. I just think it can do better."
Author: GERARD SHIELDS
Original Publication URL: http://theadvocate.com/
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