Failure to Fund Water Infrastructure Cited by National Research Council

The National Research Council's latest report on water infrastructure funding finds the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers faces an "unsustainable situation" in maintaining national water projects at acceptable levels of performance. A press release announcing the report is attached here, and a summary of the larger report is attached here. The full report can be obtained in pre-publication format from the NRC's website. The NRC report states the familiar rallying cry that decades-old locks and dams threaten the inland waterway system, and the economic activity the inland waterways sustain. Somewhat distressing is the foreboding, but realistic, statement that despite calls for funding and repairs, gradual deterioration will effectively require discommissioning of locks and dams: "Parts of the system could be decomissioned and divested, but it is more likely that the lock and dam network will be modified by gradual deterioration rather than any planned decomissioning."