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location: Long & Foster (Agenda) note: Board Meetings are open to Community Members |
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DNREC's Tony Pratt provides update on Army Corps project
On February 9, 2007 in the Bethany Town Hall, DNREC’s Tony Pratt addressed a meeting of interested property owners about the long-planned Army Corps project, which they dub “The Big Fix”. He noted that the FY07 budget was expected to be finalized in the next 2-3 weeks, as Congress has been running on continuing resolutions thus far this fiscal year. Due to recently adopted budget procedure changes, there would be no earmarking of funds by individual members; however, the Army Corps would still be funded at some level for its larger projects. While the maintenance spending (as with all federal agencies) would be set at the FY06 level, this does not apply to larger Capital Works projects. It is expected that, whatever the amount that is budgeted to the Army Corps for its Capital Works projects, the decisions as to exactly how it is to be spent will be up to the Army Corps of Engineers. (In fact, the USACE has been arguing for this kind of funding for quite some time.) Within the Army Corp’s Philadelphia district, Pratt has been assured that the Bethany/South Bethany project is currently their number one shore protection project. Since it received the $3 million in USACE planning funds last year, it is considered a project that is “Funded for Construction”. In other words, if you hear that new projects will not be considered, that does NOT apply in this instance. While DNREC has talked about possible scenarios should the FY07 funding be set at the desired $14 million, or zero, or every number in between, he believes there is a reasonable chance that the project will be able to get underway this fall. In fact, he went as far as to say that while there might be some mobilization work during the end of August, no actual pumping would start until after Labor Day. He did stress that, should they get the construction funding, they have already completed all necessary planning work, and were in the process of finalizing the last bit of contract language on the bid documents. They have only a few easements left to obtain, but these were not named. He stated that they had done as much advance planning for this project as any he has worked on in his 26 years with DNREC. He believes that the area citizens have done as much communicating with their legislators on this as possible-apparently the DE congressional delegation received some 30,000 eMails and letters, which was unprecedented. When asked, he said right now it was not worthwhile for citizens who lived outside of Delaware to still contact their own representatives. But that may become necessary again should they still require funding in FY08. One South Bethany citizen asked if it was possible for the project to proceed with something other than the normal 65/35 federal/local split. Pratt said that there is a provision in the law that allows this, which means the project could proceed if the state of Delaware, or Sussex County, or the Town of Bethany wanted to contribute to the project. (Apparently there is some kind of a credit that can be earned in this case. Whether it means the extra local contribution is just a loan, or whether it’s a credit towards the future maintenance bills for the beach, I’m not exactly certain.) One citizen asked if the maintenance timing would get speeded up should a replenished beach suffer extensive damage due to a storm. Pratt indicated that FEMA now followed “Delaware Practice”, which is so named because Delaware successfully argued in 1992 that the beach that had been eroded was a properly engineered beach, with a showing of dedicated maintenance over time, and thus qualified for FEMA funding to assist in the subsequent renourishment. The total annual federal spending for such shoreline restoration projects in recent years has been approximately $170 million, which is fairly insignificant in terms of the overall budget picture. Within the Executive Branch, the exact amount of money to be included in the President’s budget is determined at the Office of Management and Budget level, not the Presidential or Cabinet level. In essence, it’s small potatoes to most. The final answer on how much of the desired $14 million in federal funding is allocated this fiscal year should come by the end of February. |
