Army Corps Under Fire: In a Flood, It Released More Water

Thank you, my friend SSG(P) (Join to see) for posting that the US Army Corps of Engineers is under fire by the citizens whose homes were flooded after "heavy rainfall forced the federal agency to open nearby Keystone Dam and release a large amount of water into the Arkansas River, flooding parts of Sand Springs and other towns"in Oklahoma.
FYI LTC Orlando Illi Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price CPT Jack Durish Capt Tom Brown CMSgt (Join to see) MSG Andrew White SFC William Farrell SGT (Join to see) Sgt Albert Castro SSgt Boyd Herrst SGT Charles H. Hawes SSG Martin Byrne PO1 William "Chip" Nagel CPT Gabe SnellLTC Greg Henning

Sometimes decisions are not the best ones.

I’d like to cover two points raised in the article; not emptying the reservoir and the changing mission.

First, from the article “throughout the extraordinary spring deluge” (extreme outlier). USACE is tasked with guessing the weather across the US. Keeping water levels too low and the locals complain about impact on recreation and fresh water supplies. To high, and you get the stated flooding. It’s a constant battle that occurs every year. One of the more recent fights was between Georgia, Alabama, and Florida over USACE releases of water from dams in Georgia (they each had a different agenda that they wanted the Corps to follow).

Changing the priority from flood control to environmental, or whatever. From my experience, that’s due to, local up through national, politicians. The primary evidence is funding. Except for the commanders and a few program (like dredging certain harbors), operational funds are generated by congress for projects they they direct (USACE can suggest). So, when a District works on environmental “stuff”, that’s because that’s what congress has funded and directed. The Division Commanders on down that I knew, followed the direction of headquarters which got its marching orders mostly from congress. A perfect recent example was when the commander in the district covering the pipeline installation in the Dakotas was overridden by one of the SES types (who received their direction from ?). He acted on USACE policy and procedures only to be usurped.

Having said that, I was not involved nor do I know the facts behind the specific situation referenced in the article. USACE may have screwed it up. But often times the Corps takes one (the blame) for their boss; US Congress.

Hopefully, they can mitigate further destruction.