believe that any of the Corps of Engineers' dams are in imminent danger of failure, we know that the risks of failure from extremely large floods and seismic events might be, in some cases, greater than were considered in the original designs. Experience in dam construction and technological advances since some of these structures were completed have caused changes to be made in design criteria used for modern dam construction. Although preliminary analyses using modern criteria have not been completed for all Corps dams, information to date shows that spillways account for about 80 percent of the potential problems and seismic questions for the balance. We can now conclude that additional spillway capacity should be provided some of our existing dams and that at some locations modifications would be prudent to reduce the risk in the event of large earthquakes. at The Because this subject is important and because it does have budgetary implications, we need to develop design criteria which not only consider hydrologic data but evaluate the downstream risk in determining what modification to spillways is warranted. determination of these design criteria should take into account the experiences and practices used at both Federal and non-Federal dams because the acceptable level of risk under similar circumstances should be the same regardless of ownership. In the 1985 budget we have included money to reduce the risk at two dams. The total cost of such work is $8.6 million, of which $1.7 million would be used in 1985. The Administration's policy is that the cost of safety work should be borne by the Federal Government. However, if additional economic benefits result from modifications of dams, appropriate cost sharing would be allocated among beneficiaries. Correction of Project Deficiencies The budget includes $10.9 million to continue construction on two design deficiency projects and correction $250,000 to start design on one such project. The total $27.5 million. estimated cost of the work is In each case these expenditures represent economically justified capital improvements in the interest of restoring the functions and assuring productivity of existing works built by the Corps. We believe that the evolution of Our understanding of the site-specific problems associated with these projects and the evolution in the engineering science will enable us, through the investments we are proposing, to realize fully the intended project outputs. VI. OCEAN DISPOSAL OF DREDGED MATERIAL The FY 1985 Budget provides $449 million for dredging to maintain adequate depths in our Nation's waterways and harbors. The cost of dredging is significant and steadily rising. We are very much concerned about the trend to require disposal of dredged material at great distances in the Ocean in the absence of scientific evidence suggesting that there are benefits commensurate with the costs of such efforts. Regardless of whether the extra costs of disposal are to be borne by Federal or non-Federal interests, it is important that all of us assess realistically the cost of ocean disposal before we adopt this procedure. In this connection, the committee, in its report on the FY 1984 Energy and Act, gave its Ocean Water Development concurrence to Ocean Appropriation disposal at a distance of 30 miles at site 5 for the Tampa Bay Harbor project. The subcommittee is urged to take a closer look at such expenditures because the net effect of accepting unsupported, costly proposals to dispose of dredged material ever further out to sea would be less available money for other water projects. In short, unless there is a scientific ΟΙ technical basis for doing so, we believe it is unwarranted to incur the added costs implicit in the tendency the tendency to dispose of dredged materials at ever increasing distances in the ocean. The additional cost might also result in the infeasibility of some needed projects. The Chief of Engineers will provide additional information on this important tradeoff issue. 31-241 0-84--2 VII. REGULATORY REFORM an early goal of this Regulatory reform was Administration. On May 7, 1982, the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief issued a directive to the Corps of Engineers on various aspects of its regulatory program. The directive included measures to speed up the permit process, expand the use of general permits, reduce duplicative and overlapping procedures, give more authority and the responsibility to the states, and clarify the scope of Clean Water Act jurisdiction. We have already implemented a number of reforms that could be handled administratively. For example, to speed up process time, interagency coordination agreements have been revised to reduce a four-step, four-level decision process to a one-level review process, and many in-house procedures have been modified. Interim rules were published in July 1982, and additional proposed regulations designed to complete our regulatory reform effort were published in May 1983. In December 1982, sixteen environmental groups brought suit against the July 1982 regulations. We worked very hard with those environmental and reached a tentative groups settlement which calls for publication of proposed rules to address their After those proposals have been subjected concerns. to public review, we plan to issue final regulations. our regional cornerstone in The nationwide permits, along with and state general permits, have been a Our reform efforts. These permits are authorizing one hundred thousand activities annually without over the red tape of formally processing individual permits. In addition, we have been able to take advantage of existing state and local regulatory programs by developing general permits around them. while I would like to stress that the result of Our regulatory reforms to date is that we have maintained the environmental standards of the program reducing the average permit processing time by 40 percent and reducing the backlog of applications awaiting action by 60 percent. In addition, for the first time in many years, the Army, under the Section 404 interagency coordination agreements, has more direct responsibility and accountability in the decisionmaking process which gives the public, the Congress and the Administration a clear focus for program management. Just as importantly, it is estimated that our reforms are saving millions of dollars for landowners who are able to move more expeditiously in the use of their Own property. In addition, the benefits of projects can be realized much faster when citizen-beneficiaries of those projects are able to water proceed development. expeditiously with project-related |