Top Corps Brass Share Frustrations Over Waterways
The Waterways Journal
19 October 2015
Editorial
There is no question that inland waterways stakeholders have been
frustrated for decades over government’s unwillingness to finance
waterway infrastructure improvements and proper maintenance. But
now we learn from the October 8 issue of the Waterways Council
Inc.’s newsletter Capitol Currents that the stakeholders are not
the only ones frustrated.
Maj. Gen. John Peabody, who retired from the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers in August after 35 years of military service, authored a
revealing article in Capitol Currents that
explained some of the frustrations the Corps faces in trying to
modernize both the nation’s infrastructure and the Corps itself.
What Peabody and most likely other Corps officials have in common
with inland waterways stakeholders (particularly organizations
that work tirelessly to spread the word about how important
waterways are to the U.S.) is a great appreciation for our
waterways and water transport despite their present condition.
According Peabody’s Capitol Currents article, “The
United States is the continental maritime nation. No other nation
has even a small fraction of the natural or developed access to
waterborne transportation, whether by ocean, Great Lakes, or river
system, as this nation.“
It is prudent to ask at this point: How is it that administration
after administration has permitted this marvelous transportation
advantage that we have to deteriorate? Believe it or not, the same
question is being asked by transportation officials in other
countries, which are not so blessed. Year after year we see (even
in our own WJ reports) that vessels are being shipped from the
U.S. to South American countries that are busy at work improving
their waterways.
Since we all agree in the matter of how important inland waterways
are to the U.S., what are we going to do about it? According to
Peabody, much of the criticism of the Corps about civil works is
not really justified. In fairness to waterway stakeholders, their
criticism is based on decades of disappointment about government
financial support for the system as it has continued to
deteriorate.
We can attest to the fact that the Corps has tried repeatedly to
work with the Office of Management and Budget people, but their
efforts have often been ignored. We think, in fact, that while the
Corps understands totally the importance of our waterways system,
the agency, too, has been frustrated by the lack of financing
forthcoming to shore up the program. Now being retired, it is
easier for Peabody to vent those frustrations.
According to Peabody, “Having built out a fantastic array of civil
works projects valued at nearly $300 billion, the Corps mitigated
most of the most egregious flood risks and developed the most
important waterborne transportation needs. Reacting largely to
congressional direction, the Corps’ historic focus was to build
out infrastructure; operating it was a derivative task. But over
time the Corps transitioned from primarily a construction agency
to an operation and program management agency, but it has retained
its cultural affinity for construction.”
Peabody wrote, “This must change, for a very simple reason the
unforgiving fact confronting the Corps is that during the 20th
century, the nation asked it to build out and operate more water
resource infrastructure than the nation in the 21st century is
willing to resource to properly maintain. A general national
benign neglect regarding infrastructure combined with shifting
resource priorities toward entitlement spending, have resulted in
routinely under-resourced infrastructure that is inexorably
decaying.”
The bottom line is that since 2013 the Corps has changed its
approach. Gen. Peabody believes it will take time, but eventually
things will improve. It is to be noted that the Corps, as he
explains it, does not control its own destiny; it is answerable to
so many disparate forces from both within and outside of the
federal government. As Peabody and other Corps officials have
explained numerous times, the Corps can only follow the dictates
of Congress. We have always acknowledged that fact and believe the
Corps has supported inland waterways within limitations it cannot
control.
Peabody wrote, “Much of the frustration with the pace of progress
on ‘Corps transformation’ reflects an inaccurate belief that the
Corps is an independent entity able to direct its own destiny.” He
concludes that the “single best way to ‘transform’ the Corps is to
efficiently fund projects for execution, and to make hard choices
about which projects the nation will no longer subsidize.”
Peabody expresses the opinion, if we understand him, that the
Corps is on the right track now and that we will eventually see
improvements.
We hope he’s right. And we hope that the administration gets the
message. Perhaps our 21st century government will be willing to
finance inland waterways, which are probably the most profitable
undertaking the U.S government has ever undertaken.