Environmentalists Learn to Love the Corps

Water management in the United States has evolved into three distinct systems in tension with one another. One system of drainage pipes and channelized streams, a second system of dams and levees, and a third where water quality controls address some of the environmental problems caused by the first two. Environmental advocates have focused significant attention on the third system and have pushed for laws to limit the first two. Even with this strategy, one thought above all should be frightening: Even success means failure because many of our aquatic systems are already in crisis.