Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
2/13/2015
The Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program’s (FUSRAP) annual funding level should return to annual funding levels over $150 million in Fiscal Year 2016, six Democratic Senators said in a letter last week to leadership in the Senate Appropriations committee. Each year between FY 1998 to FY 2009, FUSRAP reached annual funding levels over $150 million, but in the last five years its funding level has hovered around $100 million. The Senators, including Sens. Charles Schumer (N.Y), Robert Menendez (N.J.), Cory Booker (N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y), Robert Casey (Pa.), and Sherrod Brown (Ohio), all have FUSRAP sites in their home states, and they are hoping for more funding to increase the pace of remediation. “Given the program’s critical importance, we request that funding for FY 2016 be increased back to the program’s historic level of $150 million or higher,” the letter said. “By restoring this important funding to FUSRAP, the Army Corps will be able to undertake faster and more substantial progress remediating these dangerous sites.”
The Senators also argued that more funding up-front would save money down the line, as funds needed to maintain the site pre-remediation would come off the books faster. “Furthermore, increasing funding for this program now will help to save millions of dollars over the long-term,” the letter said. “Remediation of these sites will have to occur at some point, and limited funding just increases the length of time it will take to address the dangers at these sites. The longer that process takes, the more expensive the remedial activities become, and so increasing funding for this program now can help off-set those long-term expenditures.”
The Army Corps of Engineers is requesting $104 million for its formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) in Fiscal Year 2016, according to the Army Corps’s FY’16 budget request released earlier this month. That request would marks a $2.5 million increase from the program’s total current funding level of $101.5 million, and a $4 million increase from the Corps’ FY15 budget request for FUSRAP. The major active sites, including the Shallow Land Disposal Area in Armstrong County, Pa. and the Maywood site in New Jersey, would receive the largest funding amounts in FY16 under the Corps’ budget request, but Sen. Schumer promised earlier this year he would fight for additional funding for the FUSRAP sites located in New York, especially the Tonawanda Landfill.
