The Nature Conservancy is mobilizing to save a 24-year partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers that promotes healthy rivers, weeks after the Trump administration proposed defunding the initiative.
The conservation group has worked with the Army Corps since 2002 on the Sustainable Rivers Program, which seeks to protect wildlife and wetlands from the adverse effects of dams and reservoirs. Now, for the first time, the agency has proposed eliminating funding for the program, which last year accounted for less than one-half of 1 percent of its budget.
The Nature Conservancy is pushing appropriators to keep the program alive.
The initiative costs the corps roughly $5 million per year when fully funded and is active in over 65 rivers, helping to shore up ecosystems for fish and birds and boosting water quality at little cost to the Army Corps, supporters say.
