Army Corps of Darkness

Army Corps of Engineers has screwed up more than NOLA levees

The Army Corps of Engineers spends hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on ill-designed, ineffective, and environmentally disastrous projects -- and that's not the enviros talking. Harsh critiques of the Corps -- whose work includes draining wetlands and mucking about with rivers -- have come from the National Academy of Sciences, the Government Accountability Office, and presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. But critics are few in Congress, where members push Corps projects that can bring money and jobs to constituents and contributors. Faulty Corps work on levees and other projects in Louisiana is partly to blame for the Katrina disaster. And there may be disaster in the making with a $112 million project on the Missouri River that will drain more wetlands than U.S. developers do in a year, yet won't stop flooding where it's supposed to. Wrote the Corps' chief of legislative management in a 2002 email, "Someone needs to be supervising the Corps." You think?