Corps of Engineers: The Status of Construction Project Environmental Mitigation Has Not Been Reported and Tracked as Required

What GAO Found

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must mitigate for damages to ecological resources and fish and wildlife losses created by construction projects, unless it is determined that the project will have negligible adverse impacts. Mitigation generally involves avoiding and minimizing impacts or compensating for unavoidable impacts by replacing or providing substitutes to restore, establish, enhance, and preserve resources. Section 2036(b) of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2007, as amended, requires the Corps to report to relevant congressional committees each fiscal year, concurrent with its request for appropriations, on the status of construction of projects requiring mitigation and the status of such mitigation, among other things.

The Corps is required to use a uniform methodology for determining the status of all projects included in the report. The annual reports inform the budget process to help ensure projects are adequately funded to meet their mitigation needs. The Corps did not deliver annual reports on the status of construction projects requiring mitigation to relevant congressional committees as required by WRDA 2007, as amended, after fiscal year 2020. According to Corps officials, the fiscal year 2021 report is in the Corps' approval process, and the fiscal year 2022 report is being drafted. Corps and Army officials told GAO that the delays in report delivery occurred because other work priorities superseded the report preparation and because of the lengthy review and approval process.

GAO reviewed the annual reports for fiscal years 2008 through 2020 and found the Corps did not consistently include the required information for projects. In addition, the Corps did not consistently use a uniform methodology to determine the status of projects in its annual reports for fiscal years 2014 through 2020, as required by WRDA 2007, as amended. Corps officials told GAO that the agency does not have documented policies and procedures for uniformly tracking and reporting mitigation information. According to Corps officials, they have provided a variety of assistance tools and guidance, such as informal guidance to the field with updated reporting instructions based on feedback from the prior year. Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government provides a framework for reporting timely and reliable information that could help the Corps meet statutory requirements and deadlines.

The Corps' annual reports for fiscal years 2008 through 2020 present qualitative and quantitative information about completed and ongoing mitigation activities. However, GAO found that inconsistent or incomplete information in these reports makes it difficult to draw reliable conclusions about the extent of mitigation activities and their effects. For example, the Corps' fiscal year 2020 report states that from fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year 2020, a total of 47 projects successfully met compensatory mitigation requirements. However, Corps officials told GAO that the agency does not maintain a list of projects with completed mitigation with which to verify this total. The Corps' annual reports for fiscal years 2010 through 2020 include statements indicating that compensatory mitigation and construction activities were "generally progressing concurrently," as required, but data from those reports' tables suggest that for many projects, the rate of project construction outpaced the rate of mitigation construction. In addition, the agency stopped reporting information on the extent of mitigation activities for the operation and maintenance of projects after its fiscal year 2019 report because, according to Corps officials, it is not statutorily required.

Why GAO Did This Study

The Water Resources Development Act of 2022 includes a provision for GAO to, among other things, review the Corps' annual reports and activities to mitigate fish and wildlife losses resulting from the construction, operation, and maintenance of water resources development projects. This report describes how the Corps reports and tracks such mitigation activities, the extent of environmental restoration from these activities reported by the Corps, and other information on the Corps' mitigation activities in fiscal years 2008 through 2020.

GAO collected and reviewed Corps documentation, including the annual reports for fiscal years 2008 through 2020 required by section 2036(b) of WRDA 2007, as amended, to determine how the Corps reported on mitigation and the extent to which mitigation actions had been implemented. GAO consolidated the annual report data into a central source, conducted summary and comparative analyses of the data, where possible, and evaluated these results alongside information provided by the Corps. GAO also interviewed Corps headquarters officials regarding the Corps' tracking and reporting of mitigation activities for its projects.