After Birds Point: The Army Corps’ Missouri Floodway Boondoggle
~Michael Grunwald
~On Monday, I temporarily suspended my longstanding jihad against the Army Corps of Engineers to defend the agency’s controversial decision to blow up a Mississippi River levee and flood 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland. The situation upstream remains scary, but it would be even scarier if the Corps hadn’t done its legal and ethical duty.
But now let’s return to my regularly scheduled jihad, because the mess in Missouri is shining a spotlight on one of the most outrageous Corps boondoggles: a $100 million slice of pork that even internal Corps memos have described as “swine” and “a bad project. Period.”
It was justified through blatant data-cooking by the Corps, shut down by an angry federal judge, and allowed to die by an embarrassed Bush administration. Inexplicably, the Obama Administration has brought it back to life. Hopefully, the events of the last week will kill it for good.