Few were surprised this week when President George W. Bush’s budget for the 2008 fiscal year was revealed not to include any funding for beach replenishment projects in Delaware. Bush has never included funding for such projects in his budget, as was the case with President Bill Clinton before him.
“Under any president — Republican or Democrat — funding to protect our beaches from storm damage is an annual fight in Congress, and funding for the Delaware beaches will remain a priority for me,” Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) assured concerned constituents after the president’s budget was unveiled.
“While the overall funding request for the Army Corps is the highest we have seen from the administration, it is still less than the amount Congress appropriated in FY 2006,” Castle noted in his statement.
The president’s budget again focuses on the prioritizing of “high-performing projects” under the Corps’ budget.
“The Corps construction program emphasizes projects that will provide the best net economic and environmental returns to the nation,” the budget extract explains. “The budget allocates funding among projects based on their economic performance, as measured by their total national benefits divided by their total costs, or, for aquatic ecosystem restoration projects, by performance measures that include their environmental significance to the nation and cost-effectiveness.”
“The budget focuses resources on high-ranking projects that have begun construction and gives priority to completing ongoing projects, as opposed to starting new ones,” the extract continues. “It also funds studies of those future projects that would potentially yield high net economic and environmental returns.”
Beach replenishment projects have never been deemed to be of high economic or environmental value by the executive branch, despite an estimated return of some $7 or more for every dollar spent on the projects.
The only projects deemed “Priority Construction Projects” under the 2008 Budget Authority were: Sims Bayou, Houston, Texas, with $24 million for flood damage reduction; New York/New Jersey Harbor, with $91 million toward commercial navigation; Olmsted Locks and Dam, Ohio River(Illinois, Kentucky), with $104 million for commercial navigation; Oakland Harbor, California, with $42 million for commercial navigation; Upper Mississippi River System Environmental Management Program (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin), with $23 million for commercial navigation/mitigation; and the Everglades/South Florida Ecosystem Restoration, with $162 for aquatic ecosystem restoration.
The focus of the funding is mainly on large-scale commercial navigation projects, with a nod to Houston’s flood damage mitigation program and the Everglades restoration. No other projects are specifically allocated with funding under the president’s budget proposal.
Protecting beaches not prioritized
While beach reconstruction is a subject that also falls under the high-profile heading of flood damage mitigation, the administration has yet to put standard beach replenishment or the large-scale reconstruction projects under a budgetary priority as helping to prevent the kind of widespread property damage and loss of life that occurred along the Gulf Coast in 2005’s hurricane season.
Instead, budgetary priorities for the Corps directed toward increasing preparedness focus on response, rather than prevention.
“The Corps plays a central role in responding to flood, hurricane, and other natural disasters,” the budget extract reads. “Although disasters are often unpredictable, the Corps must be ably prepared to respond to their occurrence. For this reason, the administration proposes to substantially increase the emergency preparedness budget to $40 million in 2008.”
“This increased funding will enable the Corps to train more of its staff to be able to effectively respond, improve needed inter-agency coordination to facilitate communication and response with state, local and other federal agencies, maintain larger emergency supply inventories and purchase additional rapid-response vehicles,” it says.
At no point is the reconstruction of dwindling coastlines mentioned as a way to prevent the kind of wholesale disaster that happened along the Gulf Coast, and no funding is associated with such efforts on a nationwide scale, let alone locally on the Delaware shore.
Bethany-South Bethany project still waiting on funding
The Bethany Beach-South Bethany project area does, however, remain the lone Delaware municipal beach that has not been replenished under federal-state cost share agreements that reconstructed the beaches in Lewes, Rehoboth and Dewey Beach, and Fenwick Island.
With just $3.3 million in federal monies in the bank for the construction phase of the project, some $14 million in additional federal funding is now estimated to be needed before construction on the project could begin.
The president’s budget proposes to authorize the Corps to issue multi-year contracts in lieu of its previous continuing-contract authority.
“This would subject Corps contracts to conditions and oversight similar to those that apply to other federal contracting agencies,” the budget extract reads. “It would increase the ability of the executive branch and the Congress to establish priorities by reducing the high out-year funding commitments that result from the existing contract authority,” it added of the continuing contracts, which were eliminated in previous budget years by Congress.
As it stands, state officials have said they expect the curtailing of continuing contracts to require all money for the Bethany-South Bethany project to be in the bank before construction starts. Multi-year contract authority, if granted as part of the budget bills eventually passed by Congress, would make the requirement clearer than in existing law.
Continuing contracts previously allowed projects such as the Delaware beach reconstruction to get under way after a portion of total funding was appropriated by Congress, without full funding of the project being made in advance.
The curtailing of such contract authority, as well as restrictions on the moving of funds from one project to another (related to prioritization or left-over funds), has been the key factor in delaying the beginning of beach reconstruction in Bethany Beach and South Bethany, even though the project itself was authorized years ago.
Thus local officials and property owners have remained on tenterhooks, awaiting word on coming budget bills from the Congress. A continuing resolution passed by Congress to fund the federal government through the end of the 2007 fiscal year did not include specific funding for the project, meaning they will likely have to wait until the fall before any potential funding amounts or start date would be known.
DNREC to answer replenishment questions on Friday
With many eager to have a better idea when they might get more sand on the beaches that front their properties and protect their towns, officials in Bethany and South Bethany have arranged a public meeting for Friday, Feb. 9, at 2 p.m. at the Bethany Beach town hall.
DNREC’s Tony Pratt has been invited to the meeting to talk about the status of replenishment funding and whether state assistance might be forthcoming on a more short-term basis. The public is being invited to attend and ask any questions they might have about replenishment.
The state has assured the two towns that it is ready to come to their aid should nor’easters threaten the towns’ beaches and properties before a larger beach reconstruction project gets under way, but the question remains at what point the state would declare the situation enough of an emergency to actually get sand moving onto the beaches.
That is surely one of the issues that Pratt will be asked to address this week, as area homeowners consider the implications of the president’s budget proposal and the likely wait until this fall for any additional funding from the federal government for Delaware beach replenishment.