Kyle Kellams: Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis recently received an interesting press release in his inbox.
Jack Travis: I sure did. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent me a release titled "Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Announces Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork Initiative for the Army's Civil Works Program."
Kellams: It was a lot that landed in your inbox. What does all that mean?
Travis: That's a good question, Kyle. The release says the initiative will provide greater focus on the Corps of Engineers' civil works missions — and that's corps as in C-O-R-E, like essential programs — then minimize non-core programs, direct funds to priority water resource projects, shorten permitting timelines and reduce or eliminate regulations. It goes on to say that under the new initiative, commanders will be empowered to take informed risks in advancing "critical water resource projects." It also advertises policy changes that promise to bring greater transparency and accountability for the program to the public, project partners, sponsors and elected leaders.
Kellams: I'm getting there, but I'm also going to ask again, what does this mean?
Travis: Yeah, that's still a good question. I reached out to the Corps of Engineers Little Rock District's chief of public affairs, Jay Townsend, and posed him the same query.
Travis: First, in your own words, I would love for you to just describe this new initiative. And from your perspective, how it will benefit the Corps of Engineers.
Jay Townsend: The Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works has ordered us to build infrastructure, not paperwork. And for years there's been a lot of slowdown because of bureaucratic delays. And so his new initiative is going to allow us to kind of cut through some of that red tape by telling commanders at these districts to pick your priorities and streamline those processes and get those done as fast as possible.
Travis: This is very interesting to me because obviously we've all heard a lot about President Trump talking about cutting red tape and increasing efficiency. But this is the first time that something's coming to my inbox that is describing exactly that. So could you give me maybe one or two examples of a new or perhaps changed program and how it will in fact increase efficiency?
Townsend: The Corps of Engineers has done a lot of things in its 250 years worth of history. But what this initiative does is it focuses the Corps of Engineers on our core priorities like flood risk management, hydropower, navigation and regulatory. And so we're going to take risks in a lot of those other projects and not necessarily prioritize them, but we're going to move those big critical infrastructure processes that we have to the very top of our list so that we are ensuring we're delivering these capabilities for Americans.
Kellams: He used that word risks. Did he talk about the informed risk specifically that commanders might be taking?
Travis: Yes. He says that's a decision a commander would make when they don't have all the data yet,.
Townsend: But our engineers or our scientists feel confident in something. The informed risk would be then moving forward on that project, rather than waiting on some of the bureaucratic delays or some of the data to come back.
Travis: And I'm just curious, is there a framework for commanders when they might take an informed risk like this? Is there some sort of flow of thought that they're supposed to go through?
Townsend: This one, I'm not really sure of that answer. But it would come down to the military decision-making process where you're collecting information and making an informed decision — sometimes faster than you want to, but you're taking the best intel and data that you have to make that decision.
Travis: He says when they talk about informed risk, the Corps of Engineers is referring to commanders having the flexibility to make timely, well-supported decisions that keep projects moving without getting bogged down in unnecessary process. It's not about taking engineering, environmental or financial risks. It's more about reducing administrative delay while still meeting all legal, technical and environmental requirements.
Kellams: How will they increase transparency for the public, for elected officials — any stakeholder really?
Travis: Townsend says that element of the initiative is geared towards sponsors for potential projects who are not government-based and is designed to make the process easier to track for them.
Townsend: So if we are looking for nonfederal sponsors to do hydropower updates or help us through those big rehabilitation projects, there'll be websites and we'll roll all that out and let them know who the partners are and how we're progressing. A really good example of hydropower is how the Southwestern Power Administration has been funneling money into Beaver Dam in Northwest Arkansas, and then Bull Shoals and Norfolk, to help update those hydropower facilities and keep them running for the region. So we used to receive hydropower funding through the federal government, but now Southwestern Power Administration — the power company that markets that power across a seven-state grid — has been funneling money into Beaver Dam to rehabilitate the two units up there. One of those units has been offline since 2016 and it needed a critical rewind and rehab done. And so that one is completed and it's been operating for us. And then they funneled some funds into the other unit and it should be back online by the end of the month.
Kellams: This is pretty interesting stuff that landed in your inbox. We're going to keep an eye on these new projects and how they progress.
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