Office Of Special Counsel: Wrongdoing Likely in Army Corps Case

(28 February, 2000 ? Washington) Environmental Defense today praised the finding of the United States Special Counsel that evidence shows a “substantial likelihood that officials in the [Army] Corps [of Engineers] have engaged in violations of law, rule or regulation and a gross waste of funds” in its $58 million study of the expanded barging on the Upper Mississippi River. Based on this finding, the Special Counsel has referred the evidence to Secretary of Defense William Cohen, who is required by law to conduct an investigation and report back to the Special Counsel.

The Special Counsel’s action follows the filing of a 44 page affidavit and many supporting documents by Dr. Donald Sweeney, who served for five years as the chief economist on the study.

“This is the first assessment by an independent authority, so it is satisfying that the Special Counsel believes it shows a ‘substantial likelihood’ of serious wrongdoing,” said Tim Searchinger, an attorney with Environmental Defense. “The referral of the documents should further spur the Army’s investigation already ordered by Army Secretary Louis Caldera.”

Environmental Defense is separately releasing today a report on the Red River Waterway, which shows barging on the Red River in Louisiana has woefully failed to meet government projections needed to justify the more than $2 billion spent to convert the river into a barge canal. “A River in the Red: The Lack of Traffic on the Red River Waterway” finds that commercial traffic in 1997 was only 4% of the traffic projected for that year by the US Army Corps of Engineers when it was seeking to justify the project. The report is available at www.environmentaldefense.org.

The author of the Environmental Defense report is Dr. Robert Stearns, an economist at the University of Maryland and formerly a top official with the Army Corps. His report finds that the river carried less than 1/1000 of all commerce on the Inland Waterway Navigation System in 1996 but consumes 2% of all operation and maintenance funds and in recent years nearly 7% of all construction funds. The report shows that most of the commerce reported by the Army Corps on the Red River only travels on the lowest 35 miles of the river on the way to the Black/Oachita River, a section navigable before the Red River’s own $2 billion project.

“The Army Corps also found a way to justify the Red River, the last big new navigation project,” said Searchinger. “Together the Red and Upper Mississippi River stories show the Army Corps needs some real reform to stop building projects badly in the red.”

Environmental Defense, a leading national nonprofit organization based in New York, represents more than 300,000 members. Since 1967 we have linked science, economics, and law to create innovative, equitable, and cost-effective solutions to the most urgent environmental problems.