The president's budget for FY2011 includes $4.9 billion in funding for Army Corps of Engineers’ civil works program. This is offset in part by a proposal to cancel $52 million of prior year funding.

"The budget funds the planning, design, construction, and the operation and maintenance of projects, and focuses on the Corps' three main civil works mission areas: commercial navigation, flood and coastal storm-damage reduction, and aquatic ecosystem restoration," says Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works.

The program additionally contributes to the protection of the nation's waters and wetlands, the restoration of sites contaminated as a result of the nation's early atomic weapons development program, and emergency preparedness and training to respond to natural disasters.

The propsed budget consists of $4.05 billion from the general fund, $764.4 million from the harbor maintenance trust fund, $82.3 million from the inland waterways trust fund, and $41 million from special recreation user fees.

The FY2011 funding will be distributed among the appropriation accounts as follows:

• $2.36 billion for operation and maintenance;
• $1.69 billion for construction;
• $240 million for Mississippi River and tributaries;
• $193 million for the regulatory program;
• $185 million for expenses;
• $130 million for the formerly utilized sites remedial action program;
• $104 million for investigations;
• $30 million for flood control and coastal emergencies; and
• $6 million for the office of the assistant secretary of the Army for civil works.

Nonfederal partners are expected to make approximately $400 million in cost-sharing contributions to the rivers and harbors contributed funds in FY2011. Additionally, $16 million in federal permanent appropriations will be available to the Corps, and about $83 million will be available from the federal coastal wetlands restoration trust fund for the work of the interagency task force led by the Corps.

The operation and maintenance program is funded at $2.52 billion, including $154 million in the Mississippi River and tributaries account. The budget emphasizes performance of existing projects by focusing on the maintenance of key commercial navigation, flood and storm damage reduction, and other facilities.

Among navigation projects, the operations and maintenance program gives priority to harbors and waterway segments that support high volumes of commercial traffic. The budget also includes $15 million for the national levee inventory program for ongoing development of the national levee database—$3 million is also provided for the coastal data information program and $10 million for global change sustainability.

The total construction program is $1.78 billion, including $85 million for the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The construction program uses performance-based guidelines to allocate of funding towards the highest performing economic and environmental construction projects.

The budget funds 95 construction projects, consisting of 10 dam safety assurance, seepage control, and static instability correction projects; 20 projects justified on the basis of life-saving benefits; six project completions; two new starts; and 57 other continuing projects. Among the construction work funded are the South Florida ecosystem restoration program, which includes the Everglades ($180 million); the Columbia River fish mitigation ($138 million); Olmsted locks and dam in Illinois and Kentucky ($136 million); Wolf Creek Dam in Lake Cumberland, Ky., seepage control ($134 million); and Herbert Hoover Dike in Florida, seepage control ($105 million).

There are two high-priority new construction starts: the Louisiana coastal area program ($19 million) and Onion Creek, Lower Colorado River basin in Texas ($10 million).

The budget proposes to replace the current excise tax on diesel fuel for the inland waterways with a new funding mechanism that will raise the revenue needed to meet the authorized non-federal cost-share of inland waterways capital investments in a way that is more efficient and more equitable than the fuel tax. The proposal would preserve the landmark cost-sharing reform established by Congress in 1986, while supporting inland waterways construction, expansion, replacement, and rehabilitation work.

The FY2011 Army civil works budget, including a state-by-state breakdown, is available at http://www.usace.army.mil/CECW/PID/Pages/cecwm_progdev.aspx