Tribune-Review Media Service
February 8, 2002
By Mary Ann Thomas
President Bush's proposal to slash about 13 percent from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fiscal year 2003 budget could mean a $1.83 million cut for maintenance and operations of Allegheny River locks and dams. "There are absolutely no cuts planned this year," said Richard Dowling, a spokesman for the Pittsburgh District of the Corps of Engineers.
The Corps' budget for maintenance and operations of locks and dams on the Allegheny for fiscal year 2002 is $5.9 million and its proposed budget for fiscal year 2003 is $4.07 million. If the proposed Bush budget passes, Dowling said, "it will make it tough for us to continue in the year 2003 and beyond to provide the level of service we now provide, especially on the upper Allegheny River."
"We've been able to hold it together pretty well," Dowling said of working with flat budgets throughout the years. "But for fiscal year 2003, something has got to give somewhere."
Dowling declined to comment on any of the potential impacts of the budget. "We're looking at everything," he said.
Lawmakers and lobbyists are confident - despite Bush's insistence that money is needed for the war on terrorism - that Congress will restore most of the money Bush hopes to cut.
"Every president low balls the Corps budget," said Mea Scholl, a marketing and sales representative for RAM Terminals in New Kensington. She also is a Port of Pittsburgh commissioner representing about 80 corporate river terminal operators along the Allegheny, Ohio and Monongahela rivers.
"Every year we have to to take time off from our businesses and educate the new legislators of the importance of our projects," she said.
She will be among a delegation going to Washington, D.C., to promote commercial and recreational traffic on the Allegheny and other rivers at the end of the month.
"It appears that they are cutting out the maintenance on the locks and damns," said James McCarville, executive director for the Port of Pittsburgh Commission covering southwestern Pennsylvania. If lack of maintenance on the locks and dams continues over a period of time, a major problem at a dam could result in a closure, he said. "This region would be very affected," McCarville said. McCarville and others plan to pose such scenarios to legislators in Washington. The Corps will meet in late spring or summer with businesses and residents to discuss any changes in service along the Allegheny River.
Mary Ann Thomas can be reached at (724 )226-4691.