THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 11, 1995 TAG: 9502110110
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB AND SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
Local waterway and beach projects worth more than $200 million - including funds counted on to protect the Virginia Beach Oceanfront and replenish sand at Sandbridge - would be lost under a plan President Clinton proposed this week.
Clinton wants to restructure the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of his ``reinventing government'' campaign. The president is recommending a smaller, leaner Army Corps - one that would withdraw gradually from its historic role as a federal funding and regulatory source for local flood, erosion, wetlands and dredging projects.
Overall, the president estimates his budget proposal and restructuring would save $925 million by the year 2000, said corps spokeswoman Carol Sanders in Washington.
Under the plan, the corps would not tackle any new non-military construction jobs next fiscal year unless a project was deemed nationally significant and provided a benefit that was twice its cost.
In addition, the president wants to eventually slash the percentage of federal money going to those projects that are funded. The corps usually provides from 65 percent to 75 percent of the costs of local projects. That would be reduced to 25 percent under Clinton's plan.
Virginia Beach officials are particularly concerned with the fate of the hurricane protection project that they have been developing, with the corps's help, for 25 years.
The project would include a new seawall, doubling the width of the beach and improved storm drainage in the resort area. The federal government had promised to provide $60 million initially and about $50 million more over the next 50 years.
``We've been in a partnership, and we're very disappointed that at this late date the partnership is being turned inside out,'' Assistant City Manager Robert R. Matthias said Friday. ``The city has spent $80 million or so on the beautification of the Oceanfront in the anticipation that that would all be protected by the sand provided by the Army Corps.'' Federal funding could be threatened for other local projects:
Sand for the quickly eroding Sandbridge beaches, costing $6 million up front and $65 million over the next 50 years.
Beach erosion and hurricane protection plan for the Bay front between Willoughby Spit and Ocean View in Norfolk, costing $500,000 to study, about $3 million to launch and several million per year for the next half-century to maintain.
Sand for replenishing the beaches along the ocean resort strip, costing $1 million next year.
``That is staggering,'' Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf said Friday when she learned of the potential losses to the city. ``If this is just the proposed budget by the president, then obviously it's going to be massaged by the Congress.''
And Congress seems ready to start.
``I strongly support efforts to downsize the federal government as we work towards balancing the federal budget,'' Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said in a prepared statement released Friday. ``I am concerned, however, that the corps is abruptly turning its back on one of its fundamental missions - hurricane protection - which saves lives and protects property.''
The president also is recommending a major shift in how wetlands are regulated. Instead of federal control, by 1996 the states would assume the always-controversial task of managing growth and development in environmentally sensitive wetlands and swamps.
For Virginia, that would mean building a whole new regulatory arm onto its state government.
In northeastern North Carolina, the biggest project in jeopardy appears to be jetties at Oregon Inlet. Long delayed in Washington, the project is designed to control shoaling in one of the primary passageways for commercial fishing fleets on the mid-Atlantic coast.
While the Corps has helped dredge the inlet for years, construction of the two, mile-long jetties has not begun.
Most navigational dredging projects would continue under the president's plan, said Bill Brown, director of public affairs in the Norfolk district. Locally, that would continue funds for maintaining the depths of area harbors, channels and the Rudee and Lynnhaven inlets in Virginia Beach.
But the Beach's Matthias said he's heard even that funding is threatened.
``I know it's in their budget,'' he said, ``but the thing that you haven't seen that I saw is the Corps is going to re-examine all of their dredging projects and they plan on deleting 500 harbor maintenance projects that are not in the national interest.''
Matthias said he can make an argument that the dredging of area harbors and inlets is in the national interest because of Hampton Roads' Navy presence and commercial activity.
He figures Virginia will have to fight to save as many as 20 dredging projects. The problem is, officials from every other coastal state will be lobbying for their projects as well.
Should they lose federal money, state and local governments would either have to make up the difference or kill projects.
Supporters of the Sandbridge project were nervous Friday about the fate of a plan they have helped develop over the last decade. Residents of Sandbridge have been counting on federal funds - money that now appears to be in jeopardy.
``I guess we'll have to see how it plays out in Congress,'' said Molly P. Brown, a civic activist in Sandbridge. ``We might just have to go back and rework and see if there's another way (to fund the project).'' MEMO: Staff writer Alex Marshall contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Color FILE PHOTO
U.S. funds to replenish sand on Sandbridge's battered beaches would
be lost under the plan.
KEYWORDS: EROSION BEACH REPLENISHMENT DREDGING U.S. ARMY COPRS
OF ENGINEERS SEAWALLS BUDGET CUT by CNB