Wetlands restoration (Army Corps Eng.) officials plus $100 M sent to Iraq

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Corps Sees Its Resources Siphoned Off: Wetlands restoration officials sent to Iraq
April 24, 2004

Release from:
Mark Schleifstein
Times-Picayune (Louisiana)

Less money is available to the Army Corps of Engineers to build levees and water projects in the Mississippi River valley this year and next year, the next president of the Mississippi River Commission said Friday.

But that didn´t stop Louisiana government, business and environmental leaders from demanding more action from the Bush administration on protection from hurricanes and restoration of coastal wetlands.

Brig. Gen. Don Riley, commander of the Vicksburg, Miss., office that oversees corps operations throughout the Mississippi Valley, said this marks the third year his budget has dropped.

Corps officials involved in restoring Louisiana´s wetlands also have been sent to assist those fighting in and rebuilding Iraq, including oversight of a similar wetlands restoration project there, he said.

Ed Theriot, a Vicksburg-based engineer who had directed the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Study, was sent to Iraq four months ago to oversee the restoration of the "Garden of Eden" wetlands at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that were destroyed by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. President Bush´s 2005 budget allocates $100 million for that effort.

[lazarus]

1. link?

please?

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2. oopsie. Here:

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/organizations/sfc/siphon2004.html