In pursuing my Master of Environmental Science degree at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, I conducted research on the Army Corps of Engineers to examine whether and how the institutional culture of the agency has been changing in response to increased societal pressure to concentrate on environmental management and protection. The unique perspective this research gave me on the culture and history of the Corps inspired this analysis on the agency’s current challenges.
This is the first in a series of posts about the Army Corps. This first post contains background on the Army Corps, its history of flood control management, and some of the factors behind the strength of this year’s flooding.
The Army Corps of Engineers usually lies pretty low. Engineers speaking earnestly while wearing hard hats and castle logos do not make for very tempting paparazzi bait, so the last time we heard this much about them was five years ago, when the levees failed in New Orleans during Katrina. Five years before that they were also in the news, when journalist and author Mike Grunwald wrote a series for The Washington Post detailing pork-barrel spending, economic boondoggles, environmental destruction, and other ills that he considers the hallmarks of the agency.
2011 Spring Flooding in Minot, ND. From ND Dept. of Emergency Services
We’re beginning to hear from the Corps again as the divisions on the shores of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries are forced to make tremendous decisions day after day in order to deal with the record-smashing flooding in that region. These rivers, along with the Ohio river, cover over 1 million square miles of the United States. More small communities and tracts of cropland fall victim daily to inundation as levees either fail due to the incoming cascades of water or are deliberately destroyed in order to spare an urban or industrial center downstream.
Interesting–it turns out that when the Army Corps makes the news, it’s usually for something terrible. It almost makes you feel sorry for them.
Eliza Cava 