On June 23, 2016, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Col. James A. DeLapp was named commander of the Corps’ Mobile District. According to a news story written by Apalachicola, Florida, on October 14th to meet with local, regional and state leaders.
We are thankful to David Adlerstein for his work and for the Fair Use Copyright Act which allows us to quote from the article for use in this news story.
We also want to commend Col. DeLapp for his wise and careful comments on these touchy issues.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Colonel DeLapp
“Collaboration is the key. The Corps tries to meet all of those purposes [recreation, flood control & hydroelectric, etc.] Everyone has their own unique interests, some are shared and some are divergent. The challenge the Corps has as the executor is to take all the interests together and to meet all of those purposes.”
“The Corps and I are not alone, we don’t make those decisions unilaterally although the district commander has quite a bit of authority. We can’t do things we aren’t authorized or provided funding to do. If we could it would probably be a much different day but you’d have things changing every two or three years.”
Challenges Faced by the Corps of Engineers
“What we do is not cheap, and today more so than ever our nation’s really struggling to continue to fund these vital resources they’ve built over the years. We don’t have the funding and resources to do it all on our own any more. We must rely on universities.”
Issues Downstream
“I want to make sure I saw this part of the river [Apalachicola] as well. What happens downstream is really what’s most important. You get a much different view than on a drive, when you come down the river and see the challenges. We saw the depths and some of the snags and some of the things in the way.”
“There’s no doubt the greatest challenge for this district is why were here, what everyone likes to refer to as the ‘water wars,’” said Colonel DeLapp.
May the citizens of Georgia, Alabama and Florida, not lawyers, be the victors in the Water Wars.
