SEATTLE - The President’s Budget for Fiscal Year 2019 (FY 2019) includes $4.785 billion in gross discretionary funding for the Civil Works program of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, including more than $76 million for Seattle District programs and projects.
"The Fiscal Year 2019 Civil Works budget for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reflects the administration's priorities to support and improve the nation's economy and infrastructure," said Mr. Ryan Fisher, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. "This Budget supports the core mission areas of the Corps – commercial navigation, reducing flood risks from riverine flooding and along our coasts, and restoring aquatic ecosystems.
"The Budget enables the Corps to carry out its important missions, while advancing the Administration’s infrastructure initiative," said Fisher.
New Federal funding in the Civil Works budget consists of $3.769 billion from the General Fund of the Treasury, $965.13 million from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund (HMTF), an estimated $45 million from Special Recreation User Fees, and $5.25 million from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund (IWTF).
The FY 2019 funding will be distributed among the appropriations accounts as follows:
- $2,077 million for Operation and Maintenance, including more than $30 million for Seattle District operating projects, and more than $19 million for navigation projects and evaluations
- $965 million for Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund
- $872 million for Construction, including $25 million for the Mud Mountain Dam Fish Passage Facility
- $245 million for Mississippi River and Tributaries
- $200 million for the Regulatory Program
- $187 million for Expenses
- $120 million for the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP)
- $82 million for Investigations
- $27 million for Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies
- $5 million for Inland Waterways Trust Fund
- $5 million for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works
The FY 2019 Budget includes $1.930 billion for the study, design, construction, operation and maintenance of inland and coastal navigation projects.
The Budget gives priority to coastal harbors and inland waterways with the most commercial traffic. It also provides priority for maintenance of channels at small ports that support significant commercial fishing, subsistence, or public transportation benefits.
The Budget proposes establishing an annual fee to support infrastructure investment and economic growth by helping finance the users’ share of future capital investment, as well as 10 percent of the operation and maintenance cost, in the inland waterways. The Budget also proposes to reduce the Harbor Maintenance Tax to better align estimated annual receipts from this tax with recent appropriation levels for eligible expenditures from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund.
The FY 2019 Investigations program as a whole is funded at $83 million in the Budget, including $600 thousand from the Mississippi River and Tributaries (MR&T) account, to fund studies to determine the need, engineering feasibility, and economic, environmental and social return of potential solutions for water and related land resources problems.
The Investigations account also includes $25 million for USACE efforts, in conjunction with state floodplain management authorities, to provide technical and planning assistance to enable local communities to reduce their flood risk, with emphasis on non-structural approaches. The Budget continues to invest in the development of interagency teams known as Silver Jackets to help coordinate federal assistance in enabling communities to understand their flood risks and implement non-structural flood risk management solutions.
The FY 2019 Construction program as a whole is funded at $1.02 billion in the Budget, including $872 million in the Construction account, $109 million in the MR&T account, $32.6 million in the HMTF and $5 million in the IWTF. The construction program uses objective, performance-based guidelines to allocate funding toward the highest performing economic, environmental, and public safety investments.
The Budget funds 26 construction projects and programs, consisting of 12 flood risk management projects (including one MR&T project), seven aquatic ecosystem restoration projects and seven commercial navigation projects.
The Flood Risk Management program is funded at $1.491 billion in the FY 2019 Budget. The program is a collaborative effort that integrates and synchronizes the flood risk management projects, programs, and authorities of USACE with those of other federal agencies, state, regional and local agencies. It helps to reduce the risk of loss of life and property damage from riverine and coastal flooding, and increase the resilience of local communities through structural and non-structural measures.
The Flood Risk Management funding includes $431 million for dam safety assurance, seepage control, and static instability correction work in the Construction account, $9.75 million for seven new dam safety modification studies in the Investigations account, and an additional $11 million for interim risk reduction measures at Corps dams in the O&M account.
The FY 2019 O&M program is funded at $3.144 billion in the Budget, including $2,076.73 million in the O&M account, $932.53 million in the HMTF account, and $135.11 million in the MR&T account. For O&M, the Budget emphasizes performance of existing projects by focusing on those coastal harbors and inland waterways with the most commercial traffic, as well as safety improvements at federal dams and levees based on the risk, considering the consequences- of the most likely failure modes.
The FY 2019 Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration program is funded at $224 million in the Budget. This program supports restoring aquatic habitat in significant ecosystems where the aquatic ecosystem structure, function and processes have been degraded. USACE will continue to work with other Federal, state and local agencies, using the best available science and adaptive management to protect and restore these ecosystems.
The FY 2019 Budget funds Recreation at $260 million. USACE is one of the nation’s largest providers of federal recreation opportunities, hosting approximately 250 million visits annually at its more than 400 lake and river projects in 43 states.
The FY 2019 Regulatory Program is funded at $200 million in the Budget -to protect the nation’s waters and wetlands and provide efficiency in permit processing.
The FY 2019 FUSRAP program is funded at $120 million in the Budget to continue program activities at 19 sites contaminated by the Nation’s early efforts to develop atomic weapons.
The Budget proposes to divest the Washington Aqueduct, which is the wholesale water supply system for Washington, D.C.; Arlington County, Virginia; the City of Falls Church, Virginia; and parts of Fairfax County, Virginia, and is the only local water supply system in the nation owned and operated by USACE.
Based on USACE’s contribution to the response and recovery of communities after natural disasters strike, and the inevitability that there will be more, the USACE Emergency
Management program is funded at $33 million in FY 2019, with $27 million in the FCCE account for preparedness and training to respond to floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, and $6 million in the O&M account.
The FY 2019 Civil Works budget press book is available on the Web at http://www.usace.army.mil/Missions/CivilWorks/Budget.aspx, under the heading Program Budget: Press Books.