Ideas Flow at Water Resources Hearing

Witnesses before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday had a shipload of ideas on how to spend federal money on water resources.

Lawmakers heard suggestions they include in a new Water Resources Development Act a capital spending plan for the Army Corps of Engineers. Others told the panel they needed provisions to spend down the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and greater emphasis on the national levee infrastructure.

The hearing was only the second the committee devoted to the bill, which periodically authorizes the Corps to undertake civil works projects but provides no money to do so. The last WRDA cleared Congress in 2007.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed its version of WRDA on Sept. 29, but senators doubt a finished bill will pass before Congress adjourns.

Water resources commentary from JOC:
Engineered to Fail.

Matt Woodruff, a member of the Inland Waterways User Board, the Corps’ public advisory committee, said the next WRDA should include a $7.6 billion, 20-year capital spending plan developed by the Corps and barge industry to prioritize and complete a number of major lock and dam construction and rehabilitation projects.

Larry Roth, a project manager for infrastructure engineering firm ARCADIS in Sacramento, Calif., and speaking for the American Society of Civil Engineers, said WRDA should include provisions for rehabilitation of high dams and levees. In 2009 the professional society gave U.S. infrastructure a grade of D, and called for a $2.2 trillion four-year investment from all levels of government to address the problems.

Jim Weakley, president of the Lake Carriers Association urged that WRDA incorporate a separate bill that would require the government to match harbor maintenance appropriations with the anticipated revenue of the same year. The Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund has a surplus that exceeds $5 billion.

-- Contact R.G. Edmonson at bedmonson@joc.com.