If the House stimulus bill passes, water resource and navigation would get $5.4 billion distributed by four federal agencies: the Army Corps of Engineers, the International Boundary and Water Commission, the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the Dept. of Agriculture and the Coast Guard.
The Corps has the largest cut by far, $4.5 billion, although some expected three times more. “The number working through Congress about three weeks ago [for water resources] was $13 billion or $14 billion,” says Rob Vining, vice president of HNTB Federal Services Corp., Arlington, Va., who was civilian chief of the Corps’ program management division for civil works from 2001 to 2005. “It is surprising so little of the stimulus package is addressing critical water infrastructure.”