The Army Corps of Engineers will see a 5% across the board funding cut as a result of sequestration.
Army Corps officials are still evaluating how those cuts will affect construction and engineering programs.
Memphis District commander Colonel Vernie Reichling says a 5% cut will not significantly reduce any of the Corps’ public safety projects.
“It may affect some of our normal construction program this year or next year, depending on how that cut is applied, and we have not received guidance on how that cut is applied,” Reichling said.
An example of normal construction would be relief well projects that were originally scheduled for this year.
Construction projects that stem from 2011 flood damage will not be affected by sequestration. Those projects include Army Corps work in Cairo, Illinois, the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway, and Fulton County, Kentucky.
However, the Corps is revising its Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway operating plan. Most of the plan’s changes come after activation.
One of the major additions to the plan is how to reconstruct the area.
Colonel Reichling says there were a number of lessons learned from the 2011 activation, including what to do with leftover explosives that don’t detonate.
“So how do you extract and desensitize and then move it and then dispose of it,” Reichling said. “Great lesson learned, right? The other lesson learned was, after you do this, how to expedite the construction process in order to get somewhat of an interim level of protection to the floodway residents before the next flood season.”
Colonel Reichling hopes the new plan will be approved before July.
The Corps used a 1986 operating plan when they detonated the levee two years ago.
