Army Corps of Engineers

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Updated June 2019

The Army Corps of Engineers

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE, Corps, COE) is a federal agency, a major Army command, and has approximately 37,000 civilian and military personnel. The Corps is the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency. The Corps' stated mission is “to provide vital public engineering services in peace and war to strengthen the nation's security, energize the economy, and reduce risks from disasters”.

History

The Corps began on 16 June 1775 when the Continental Congress established the Continental Army with a provision for a chief engineer. The Army established the Corps as a separate, permanent branch on March 16, 1802, and gave the engineers responsibility for founding and operating the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Throughout the 19th century, the Corps built coastal fortifications, surveyed roads and canals, eliminated navigational hazards, explored and mapped the Western frontier, and constructed buildings and monuments in the nation’s capital. During the 20th century, the Corps became the lead federal flood control agency and significantly expanded its civil works activities, becoming among other things, a major provider of hydroelectric energy and the country's leading provider of recreation; its role in responding to natural disasters also grew dramatically. In the late 1960s, the Corps became a leading environmental preservation and restoration agency. Since 1974, the Corps has received most of its authorization from Congress through the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA).

Organization

The Corps is organized geographically into eight permanent divisions, one provisional division, one provisional district, and one research command reporting directly to the Headquarters located in Washington, D.C. Within each division, there are several districts. Districts are defined by watershed boundaries for civil works projects and by political boundaries for military projects.

  • Great Lakes and Ohio River Division located in Cincinnati, OH with seven districts located in Buffalo, NY, Chicago, IL, Detroit, MI, Louisville, KY, Nashville, TN, Pittsburgh, PA, and Huntington, WV.
  • Mississippi Valley Division located in Vicksburg, MS with six districts located in St. Paul, MN, Rock Island, IL, St. Louis, MO, Memphis, TN, Vicksburg, MS, and New Orleans, LA.
  • North Atlantic Division located at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, NY with six districts located in New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Baltimore, MD, Norfolk, VA, Concord, MA, and Wiesbaden, Germany.
  • Northwestern Division located in Portland, OR with five districts located in Omaha, NE, Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, Kansas City, MO, and Walla Walla, WA.
  • Pacific Ocean Division located at Fort Shafter, HI with four districts located in Japan; Seoul, South Korea; Anchorage, AK; and Honolulu, HI.
  • South Atlantic Division located in Atlanta, GA with five districts located in Wilmington, NC, Charleston, SC, Savannah, GA, Jacksonville, FL, and Mobile, AL.
  • South Pacific Division located in San Francisco, CA with four districts located in Albuquerque, NM, Los Angeles, CA, Sacramento, CA, and San Francisco, CA.
  • Southwestern Division located in Dallas, TX with four districts located in Little Rock, AR, Tulsa, OK, Galveston, TX, and Fort Worth, TX.
  • Transatlantic Division located in Winchester, VA supports Federal programs and policies overseas. Consists of the Gulf Region District, the Afghanistan Engineer District South, the Afghanistan Engineer District North, the Middle East District, the USACE Deployment Center and the TAD G2 Intelligence Fusion Center.


Mission

The most visible missions of the Corps include:

  • Planning, designing, building, and operating locks and dams. Other civil engineering projects include flood control, beach nourishment, and dredging for waterway navigation.
  • Design and construction of flood protection systems through various federal mandates.
  • Design and construction management of military facilities for the Army, Air Force, Army Reserve and Air Force Reserve and other Defense and Federal agencies.
  • Environmental regulation and ecosystem restoration.


Other formal missions include warfighting, homeland security, and disaster relief.

Water Resources

Through its Civil Works program, the Corps carries out a wide array of water resource projects that provide coastal protection, flood protection, hydropower, navigable waters and ports, recreational opportunities, and water supply, and environmental protection and restoration. Major areas of emphasis include the following:

  • Navigation Supporting navigation by maintaining and improving channels was the Corps of Engineers' earliest Civil Works mission, dating to Federal laws in 1824. Today, the Corps maintains more than 12,000 miles of inland waterways, operates 235 locks, maintains 300 commercial harbors, and more than 600 smaller harbors.
  • Flood Risk Management The Corps has been addressing flood problems along the Mississippi river since the mid-19th century. They began work on the Mississippi River and Tributaries Flood Control Project in 1928, and the Flood Control Act of 1936 gave the Corps the mission to provide flood protection to the entire country. While the Corps predominantly focuses on structural modifications to reduce flood risk (such as levees, dams and engineered dunes), the Corps is also required to consider nonstructural alternatives such as flood plains (as of 1974) and natural or natured-based features (as of 2010) including wetlands, coral reefs and oyster beds.
  • Recreation The Corps is the nation's largest provider of outdoor recreation, operating more than 2,500 recreation areas at 463 projects (mostly lakes) and leasing an additional 1,800 sites to state or local park and recreation authorities or private interests.
  • Hydroelectric Power The Corps was first authorized to build hydroelectric plants in the 1920s, and today operates 75 power plants, producing one fourth of the nation's hydro-electric power.
  • Shore Protection Protecting the Nation’s shorelines from hurricane and coastal storm damage is in the Federal interest. A large proportion of the U.S. population lives near our sea and lake shores, and an estimated 75% of U.S. vacations are spent at the beach.
  • Dam Safety The Corps develops engineering criteria for safe dams, and conducts an inspection program of its own dams.
  • Water Supply The Corps first got involved in water supply in the 1850s, when they built the Washington Aqueduct. Today Corps’ reservoirs supply water to nearly 10 million people in 115 cities.
  • Environment One of the major responsibilities of the Corps is administering the wetlands permitting program under Section 404 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972. (aka "The Clean Water Act"). The Corps also manages numerous ecosystem restoration programs such as EPA Superfund and cleaning up former military installations contaminated by hazardous waste or munitions.


Reforming the Corps

Why the Corps Needs Reform

The primary reason the Corps needs reform is that many projects are approved with bogus justification by federal legislators in order to send pet projects to their home states even if they are environmentally damaging. Frequently, funding for the Corps through WRDA is more about how and where the money is spent than what is accomplished.

A classic example of a Corps pet project with environmentally damaging consequences is the 33 year effort by Senator Jessie Helms, the retired Republican Senator from North Carolina, to get the Oregon Inlet jetties project authorized via WRDA. A project long opposed by the Surfrider Foundation's Outer Banks Chapter, this $108 million boondoggle planned to build two of the world's longest jetties along the beaches of the North Carolina's Outer Banks. The project was ostensibly intended to benefit local fisherman who complained of hazardous navigational conditions at the Oregon Inlet. However, scientists warned that the jetties would create a serious erosion problem at the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The federal General Accounting Office (GAO) concluded the Corps study justifying the jetties was badly flawed. Fortunately, in a bold move, the Bush Administration killed this project for reasons that are discussed below. This is just one example. Other problems with WRDA-approved projects for the Corps of Engineers are more systemic. For instance, the Corps routinely fails to mitigate the environmental harm caused by Corps levees, dams, flood control, and waterway projects.

The same GAO report that highlighted the folly of the Oregon Inlet project found that the Corps failed to mitigate at all for 69 percent of projects constructed since 1986, when the existing mitigation law was passed. When the Corps does mitigate, it routinely fails to restore one acre of habitat for each acre lost; wetland and other aquatic habitats are often replaced with less ecologically valuable habitat types; and monitoring is not conducted to see whether the created habitats work as promised.

This failure to mitigate has very real ecological and economic implications. For example, wetlands filter pollutants from water; absorb and slow the release of storm runoff; recharge aquifers; provide crucial wildlife habitat for millions of migrating waterfowl, shorebirds and other species; and provide recreation and enjoyment to millions of Americans who visit wetland areas each year. When wetland losses are not mitigated, water quality is harmed, water supplies are strained, flood damages increase, and wildlife is harmed.

The Corps of Engineers are also responsible for many beach fill projects, harbor dredging, and construction of seawalls along the coast. While some of the projects may be necessary or even desirable, it is essential that the Corps of Engineers is held accountable for sound science, fair economic evaluation, fulfilling their obligations and listening to local communities and the public. Influencing the amendments to the Water Resources Development Act is an effective means to change the Corps behavior.

Solutions

Since so many coastal projects that Surfrider Foundation chapters work on involve the Corps of Engineers, Surfrider joined the Corp Reform Network, which was later renamed the Water Protection Network (WPN). WPN was launched in 2002 out of the frustration state, local and national organizations felt after decades of attempting to save vital resources threatened or damaged by Corps proposals and projects. WPN provides support and assistance to grassroots groups seeking help in stopping unjustifiable projects and in steering the Corps toward more friendly approaches. The network has crafted legislative proposals and provides the grassroots muscle to help make reform a reality. Comprising 192 national, regional and local organizations, including Surfrider Foundation, representing millions of Americans, WPN provides a unified voice to clearly demonstrate that Americans across the country support Congressional action and expect the benefits of Corps reform to come home to the projects in their own backyards.

WPN works to advocate changes in the policies and practices of the Army Corps of Engineers so that the agency ceases promoting projects and issuing permits that result in wasting taxpayers dollars, destroying and degrading America's water and coastal resources. Instead, the Corps should assist in the protection, restoration and recovery of damaged habitat. WPN seeks to assist and support member organizations in understanding and dealing with Corps regulations, activities and projects that affect local water resources. WPN also seeks to improve the effectiveness of organizations working to reform the Army Corps of Engineers by providing technical, legal and other support, and by providing timely information to assist groups participating in federal policy decision-making.

The Water Protection Network is jointly led by American Rivers and the National Wildlife Federation. For assistance on a Corps-related issue, please contact Surfrider Foundation's Coastal Preservation Manager, Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, at ssekich@surfrider.org

Reform Efforts to Date

In September 2003, the House of Representatives approved a $5 billion WRDA. For the first time, the bill included modest measures to reform the Corps—not enough to solve the Corps' problems, but a significant first step. Included in the bill are an independent review provision to ensure accountability from independent sources, language to improve mitigation procedures and first steps toward updating the Corps' antiquated planning guidance. Unfortunately, the bill also included language to "streamline" NEPA (See Making Waves Vol. 9, Number 4 article on NEPA) provisions, which raises concerns about adequate environmental review of the impacts of proposed Corps projects.

Ironically, the Bush administration, which has been rather dreadful on the environmental front, has been an ally when it comes to Corps reform. For example, Mississippi Congressman Mike Parker, who was assigned to oversee the Corps, was the first administrator to get fired under Bush's watch due to his efforts to stuff the Corps budget with pork. Whether this tightening of the Corps belt was motivated for concern about the environment or reduction in federal spending, the result has been to move the Corps in a greener direction.

In 2004, during the 108th Congress, Corps reform was considered but not enacted. There was another attempt (WRDA 2005) in the 109th Congress that also.

Finally, on November 8, 2007, WRDA 2007 became law and is now called P.L. 110 - 114. The law requires the Corps to modernize its project planning, strengthen its wetlands mitigation, and independently review certain projects. The law also authorizes $28 billion worth of projects.

In January 2017, the Corps took an important step to preserving coastlines and supporting more natural coastal adaptation measures by authorizing a nationwide permit for living shorelines. For years living shorelines, the environmentally-preferred stabilization method, were harder to get permitted than the more harmful hard stabilization methods. While there is much more work to be done, efforts such as this are hugely important to the protection and preservation of our coastlines.

To learn more:

Much of the information for this article was gleaned from the website of WPN and the excellent websites of American Rivers and National Wildlife Federation on WRDA and Corps Reform:


Also, Michael Grunwald has written extensively on the Corps of Engineers, including:



This article is part of a series on Clean Water which looks at various threats to the water quality of our oceans, and the negative impacts polluted waters can have on the environment and human health.

For information about laws, policies, programs and conditions impacting water quality in a specific state, please visit Surfrider's State of the Beach report to find the State Report for that state, and click on the "Water Quality" indicator link.

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