FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-
Bush budget cuts levee, drainage funds
Backlog
of contracts waits to be awarded
Tuesday,
February 08, 2005
- By Mark Schleifstein
- Staff writer
While President Bush's
proposed budget contains a hefty increase in money for the federal-state
Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration plan, other Army Corps of Engineers
construction projects in the state, including levee and drainage projects in the
New Orleans area, will see significant cuts.
The
corps' New Orleans District, which stretches across the state's coastline, will
get $290 million, a $34 million reduction from the dollars allocated for fiscal
year 2005 by Congress, and almost $300 million less than the district says it
needs to complete proposed and ongoing construction projects.
The corps' fiscal year
2006 budget is part of broad belt-tightening by the Bush administration in
response to the war in Iraq and rapidly increasing deficits.
Some of Bush's proposed
cuts could still be reversed by Congress when it takes up the budget.
The federal-state
coastal restoration plan will get $20 million, an $11.5 million increase from
2005, but still far short of what officials say is needed to begin construction
of dozens of wetland and shoreline restoration projects.
The Senate is expected
to take up the Water Resources Development Act, a list of water-related projects
expected to include authorization for $1.9 billion for the Louisiana restoration
program, sometime this month. But it could be a year or longer before the money
for those projects is appropriated in separate legislation, officials say.
Also awaiting
congressional authorization are two major levee projects -- from Morganza to the
Gulf and from Donaldsonville to the Gulf -- that the Bush budget doesn't
address. Those projects together are expected to cost more than $1.2 billion.
Bush's budget does list
the West Bank hurricane protection levee construction project as a priority,
corps budget officer Marcia Demma said. But the $28 million included in Bush's
budget is less than half the $63 million the corps said is needed in 2006.
And the $3 million
proposed for continued construction of the Lake Pontchartrain hurricane levee
probably won't be enough to clear a backlog of contracts waiting to be awarded,
Demma said, including ones that would close a major gap in the levee system in
St. Charles Parish.
Mark Lambert,
communications director for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and
Development, said the state also has been notified that construction dollars
will be reduced for a project to raise the Mississippi River levee between the
Arkansas border and the Old River Control Structure, north of Baton Rouge.
"What these cuts mean
is that the people of Louisiana will be at risk for a longer period of time,"
Lambert said.
Jefferson critical of budget
U.S. Rep. William
Jefferson, D-New Orleans, was also critical of priorities set by Bush's budget.
"While we work to widen
the Industrial Canal and provide hurricane protection for our coast, this budget
cuts the New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers budget by over $53 million,
providing zero funding for the Inner Harbor Lock Canal project and with a $26
million cut for Southeastern Louisiana hurricane protection and drainage
projects," Jefferson said.
"The federal budget is,
at its core, an expression of our nation's priorities. Once again, through this
disappointing budget, this administration confirms that it is wholly out of
touch with America's values and the real needs of people in Louisiana and
throughout the nation."
Windell Curole,
executive director of the South Lafourche Levee District, said he's worried that
a decision to cut all money for completion of the Larose to Golden Meadow
hurricane levee could spell disaster.
"Luckily, we have built
a substantial amount of this final lift," he said. "But if we're a couple of
feet low and the water goes over the top, we go from zero damage to millions of
dollars lost by our citizens."
New
ranking method used
Curole was critical of
a new method used by corps officials to rank projects by comparing the remaining
benefits to be gained from completing a project to the cost of completion. Some
corps staffers also aren't happy with the new method, saying that with some
projects like levees it doesn't adequately measure the potential danger of not
completing a final levee lift.
When a levee is built,
it is done in repeated lifts, where the levee is allowed to settle in place and
then is raised a second and third time to the height required to keep out water.
"The Larose to Golden
Meadow levee fell below that cutoff line and got nothing," corps project manager
Brett Herr said. "If there's a reach below design grade, that lowest reach is
the weakest link," and the new formula doesn't take that into account.
Also facing significant
cuts is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Program, whose projects
include a variety of canal widenings, culvert replacements and pump station
replacements and upgrades in Orleans and Jefferson parishes.
The projects would get
$10.5 million in 2006 in the Bush proposal, compared to $35 million in 2005. A
number of contractors were advised last year that they had the option of
quitting work on their projects or picking up the cost of construction
themselves, until the corps could find money to repay them.
14
projects still not started
Stan Green, project
manager for the drainage projects, said the money proposed for 2006 probably
won't be enough to allow even one of the 14 projects still not started to be put
out to bid.
In part, he said,
that's because corps officials in Washington want the district to have the
entire cost of construction for new projects in hand before they're allowed to
be put out to bid.
Exacerbating the
problem is a requirement that the drainage program pay back almost $4 million it
borrowed from other corps programs in the New Orleans district in previous years
to speed construction.
"That'd put us in a
situation where we could not award any new contracts," he said.
Demma said it's unclear
whether the cuts will require layoffs among New Orleans district's staff.
"We're still
determining the impacts, and we have a lot of folks retiring," she said.
. . . . . . .
Mark Schleifstein can
be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3327.
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