193 



eries enhancement, recreation, and 

 wildlife benefits, save federal dollars by 

 attracting other funding sources, such 

 as state and local resource, fish-and- 

 game, and park agencies. 



Some nonstructural and environ- 

 mentally sensitive design measures do 

 incur higher land acquisition costs. But 

 these costs need to be balanced against 

 the long-term costs of maintaining 

 structural engineering works, constant 

 sediment removal, vegetation removal, 

 and the unintended impacts common 

 to the traditional project design. Fiscal- 

 ly responsible policymaking and proj- 

 ect design must weigh the true, long- 

 term costs of traditionally designed 

 projects against the costs of land acqui- 

 sition. 



The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

 is proud of the flood-control project on 

 Wildcat and San Pablo creeks. An en- 

 gineer for the Sacramento district 

 wrote an article for Hydraulic Engi- 

 neering describing the interesting hy- 

 draulics of the Consensus Plan." The 

 corps' Waterways Experiment Station 

 has encouraged the use of this project 

 as a model for future water-project de- 

 signs in training courses. However, 

 well-intentioned corps personnel who 

 want to respond to local needs in for- 

 mulating plans find themselves caught 

 between conflicting local needs and 

 federal policies. Over the last 10 years, 

 the project in North Richmond is just 1 

 of 12 California water projects that the 

 public has tried to redesign to meet 

 community needs. 



The current federal system of water- 

 project evaluation is so narrow that only 

 those communities with the most influ- 

 ential representatives will be able to cir- 

 cumvent the planning system through a 

 long and costly process and get a proj- 

 ect that meets community needs. Such 

 a system does not stop pork-barrel 

 projects; it only makes them more 

 time-consuming and expensive. Only a 

 system that recognizes the need for 

 multi-objective planning and ensures 

 that these objectives are met by the 

 project under consideration for federal 

 assistance will produce water develop- 

 ment projects with genuine local and 

 national benefits. 



Environment, Vol. 31. No. 10 



1 Government Accounting otrivc. "Update on 

 Army Corps of En|in«n' Planning and Ucvigmng 

 Time (or Water Resources Projects." GAO/RCED 

 84- 16 (Washington. D C US Government Account- 

 ing Ofr.ce. January I9SJ1 



2 US Army Cotpv of Engineers. Grnrrul Druen 

 Memorandum and Oasts of Design for Heuih I. It ild- 

 cat and San Pablo Creeks (Sacramento. Calif.: U.S. 

 ACE. Sacramento District. October 1985). 



3. These early opens included Gilbert While, Jim 

 Goodard. Otto Eckstein. John tvrulilla. William 

 Hoyi. Walter Lanpbcin, Luna Leopold. Thomas 

 Maddock. Arthur Maass. Maynard Hufschmidi. and 



4 Arthur Maass el al , Design of Water-Resource 

 Systems. New Techniques for Relating Economic Ob- 

 jectives. Engineering Analysts, and Government Plan- 

 ning (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard Univeisiiy Press. 



i»t;) 



5. Martin Rcuss. "Interview wnh Professor Anhur 

 Maass." 20 May 1983. Harvard University 

 6 Joini Agency Commillee for the Development of 

 North Richmond-San Pablo Day Area. Korth Rich 

 mond-San Pablo Bay Area Study Summary Report 

 (Contra Cosia County. Caljf.. September 197 1). 

 7. INTASA. "Relationship of Ptoposed Flood 

 Conlrol Project and Model Cities Objectives for Com- 

 munity Development in North Richmond" (Menlo 

 Park. Calif . June 1971) 



8 Daniel A. Marmanian and Jeanne Nienaber. Can 

 Organizations Change? (Washington. D.C.: The 

 Brookings Institution. 1979). 



9. Barbara Vincent. Jay Vincent. Lucrelia Ed- 

 wards. Laura Hunter. Jean Sin. and members of U.S. 

 Army Corps of Engineers planning committees, con- 

 versations with author. 1983. 



10 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Wildcat-San 

 Pablo Creeks. Contra Costa County. California. Fea- 

 sibility Report for Water Resources Development (San 

 Francisco. Calif.: US ACE. August 1973. US Amy 

 Corps of Engineers. Wtldcat-San Pablo Creeks Con- 

 tra Casta County. California. General Design Memo- 

 randum Phase I for Pood Conlrol and Allied Purpos- 

 es; Draft (San Francisco. Calif -U S ACE. December 

 1977); and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Master 

 Plan Wildcat and San Pablo Creeks (San Francisco. 

 Calif : U.S. ACE. Plan prepared by Afbegasi. New- 

 ton 4 Gnffilh Landscape A/chiiecis. Contra Cosia 

 Coumy. Calif.. 1979. Draft). 



11. Philip Williams and William Vandivere. A Hood 

 Conlrol Design Plan for Wildcat and San Pablo 

 Creeks (Spo nju ite V o y -sJir Sin Francisco Foundanon. 

 the Vanguard Foundation, the East Bay Regional 

 Parks Distncl. and Save San Francisco Bay Associa- 

 tion. 27 February 1985). 



12 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Endangered 

 Species Formal Consultation on Ihe Proposed San 

 Pablo and Wildcat Creek Flood Control Project. 

 Contra Costa County. California." AFA SE 1-1-85- 

 F-19 (Ponland. Oreg.: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 



12 June 1985). 



13 McAiecr-Pctris Act of 1965 was ihe Stale of 

 California's enabling legislation that authorized Ihe 

 formation of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and 

 Development Commission. The act requires the regu- 

 lation of fill placed in Ihe bay and requires public ac- 



14 Eric Branl. "Trouble Anew for 'Murdered' 

 Creek." San Francisco Examiner -Chronicle. 14 June 

 1987. A- 1. 



15. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, note 2 above. 



16 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Digest of Water 

 Resources Policies and Authorities, EPI 165-2- 1 

 (Washington. DC: U.S. ACE. 15 February 1989). 



17 Edward F. Sing. "Stable and Environmental 

 Channel Design," Hydraulic Engineering. August 1988. 



Overview 



(continued from page 5 J 



rest with the adoption of an environmental 

 amendmem lo the Consiuuiion or (hrough 

 international environmental treaties. 



Uui ihcrc may be another option If Ihe 

 substantive goal of EIA is to influence ihe 

 decisionmaking process, the focus of alien- 

 lion should be expanded beyond ihe legal 

 performance of agencies lo include the 

 manner in which decisions arc made wiilnn 

 the bureaucracy itself. By this approach, 

 decisionmaking procedures would become 

 more transparent and open lo public par- 

 ticipation and scrutiny. Through manda- 

 tory information disclosure, public dia- 

 logue, and publicized audits, government 

 administrators would be held accountable 

 for the decisions and actions of [heir ngen- 

 cies in light of the environmcnial values 

 and aspirations expressed by the general 

 public. Thus, the quality of (he decisions, 

 which is the bottom line in EIA account- 

 ing, would be open for review and judg- 

 ment in the political arena in the same way 

 that the legal performance of agencies is 

 judged in the courts. 



This approach may sound somewhat po- 

 litically naive, given the acknowledged re- 

 luctance of bureaucracies to share control. 

 Nevertheless, it is the way in which EIA 

 procedures have evolved at the federal level 

 in Canada. After about 17 years of dcvcl- 

 opmeni under a nonlcgislatcd mandate, an 

 environmental assessment act is being pre- 

 pared that will require public involvement 

 in the decisions of government and provide 

 mechanisms lo hold agencies accountable 

 for the environmental consequences of 

 their decisions. 



Gordon E. Beanlands 



Dalhousie University 

 Heii/nx, Nova Scona 



The author replies: 



I HAVE NO SIGNIFICANT DISAGREEMENT with 



the preceding commentaries, as they gener- 

 ally add to or qualify the poinis made in 

 my article (sec page 6). But as these com- 

 mentators have made the effort to respond 

 to my ideas, so would 1 like to respond to 

 theirs. 



Timothy Alkeson suggests thai trends in 

 international environmental cooperation 

 may advance governmental commitment to 

 environmental values without the uncertain 

 aid of a constitutional amendment. I agree 

 with his objection to burdening the Consti- 

 tution with "specific strictures." but my 

 concept of the terms of an environmental 



31 



