The United States Army Corps of Engineers is involved with a wide spectrum of public works projects: environmental protection, water supply, recreation, flood damage and reduction, beach nourishment, homeland security, military construction, and support to other Governmental agencies. Through 19 Flood Control Acts since 1917, Congress has authorized the Corps of Engineers to be involved with flood protection and damage reduction in almost every state of the union.
Corps of Engineers' projects are either authorized specifically by Congress or as part of a Congressionally authorized category of projects. Projects are authorized and built in all fifty states, Local citizen, special interest, and political groups can lobby Congress for authorization and appropriations for specific projects in their area. In contrast, locals have also opposed corps projects or parts of projects.
Many of the Corps of Engineers' civil works projects have been characterized as being riddled with patronage (see pork barrel) or a waste of money and resources (see boondoggle (project)), such as the New Madrid Floodway Project and the New Orleans flood protection. Projects have allegedly been justified based on flawed or manipulated analyses during the planning phase. Some projects are said to have created profound detrimental environmental effects and/or provided questionable economic benefit such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet in southeast Louisiana. Faulty design and substandard construction have been cited in the failure of levees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Reforming the Corps' way of doing business has been championed by U.S. Senators Russ Feingold and John McCain. Holding the corps accountable has been proposed by the group Levees.org led by Sandy Rosenthal.
One of the difficulties of making changes, however, is the political process itself. Depending on the point of view of any debate on these projects, they may or may not be considered sound from an engineering standpoint (see below). Whether or not USACE planners and engineers actually do the best they can with what they are directed to do is part of the controversy.
Levee Failures in New Orleans During Hurricane Katrina
Description of Failures
On 29 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina passed to the east of New Orleans, the Corps's flood protection failed catastrophically with levee breaches in over 50 places. The levee failures caused massive flooding in New Orleans with associated property loss and drownings. When Katrina arrived, the hurricane protection authorized was between 60 and 90% complete; the projected date of completion was estimated to be 2015.
Authorization in the Flood Control Act of 1965
The Flood Control Act of 1965 (FCA 1965), enacted after Hurricane Betsy flooded large sections of New Orleans, mandated the US Army Corps of Engineers as the Federal agency responsible for levee design and construction. Among other projects and studies, FCA 1965 authorized the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity, Louisiana Hurricane Protection Project. The project was to construct a series of control structures, concrete floodwalls, and levees to provide hurricane protection to areas around Lake Pontchartrain. Although federally authorized, it was a joint federal, state, and local effort. The state and local effort was handled by the Orleans Levee Board which provided operational control and maintenance of the levees after the corps turned completed structures over to it.
Investigations of the levee failures
In October 2005, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, Chief of Engineers and the Commander of the Corps of Engineers, established the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) to "provide credible and objective scientific and engineering answers to fundamental questions about the performance of the hurricane protection and flood damage reduction system in the New Orleans metropolitan area. IPET membership consisted of multiple employees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, past and present, as well as individuals from academia, other states, water experts, and other Federal agencies.