U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The official logo of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Yes, this is a branch of the U.S. Army. The question becomes, why did I ever think differently?

To be clear, the USACE is a military operation that supports the U.S. Army in the field. They manage all the bases and other engineering projects that the Army requires. (Take a look at their leadership; all Army officers.)

But the most public part of the USACE is the “Civil Works” component. This is the part of the USACE that does civilian engineering projects, mostly involving water: damns, hydropower, etc.

This constitutes most of what USACE does. Apparently 27,000 of the 37,000 employees (75%) work on civil programs. And 97% of the employees are civilians, rather than active duty military.

The USACE was a conglomeration of several engineering organizations, but came together with the Military Peace Act of 1802 which was written to define the role of the military in peacetime.

[…] to organize and establish a corps of engineers […] That the said corps, when so organized, shall be stationed at West Point in the state of New York, and shall constitute a military academy; and […] shall be subject, at all times, to do duty in such places, and on such service, as the President of the United States shall direct.

A lot of what the USACE does is dictated by various legislation:

• The General Survey Act of 1824 directed them to plan roads
• The United States Lake Survey of 1841 direct them to map the Great Lakes
• The Flood Control Acts of 1936 and 1941 put them in charge of creating infrastructure to minimize flooding
• They are responsible for administering the Clean Water Act of 1972

Additionally, they built several large government projects:

• The Panama Canal
• The Pentagon
• Bonneville Dam

Essentially, they are the engineering and construction part of the federal government. They can be tasked with any engineering or construction project the government wants to get done.

So why are they mostly concerned with water issues? Near as I can tell, that just seems to be a large part of what concerned America in the early days of the organization, so that’s what the USACE was asked to take care of, and they kept those responsibilities.

The USACE reports up through an Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works).

Why I Looked It Up

I just always wondered.

Back in the early days of my career, the company I was working for donated a website to a environmental organization called American Rivers. A consistent theme of that organization is that the USACE was the enemy. In paricular, American Rivers was (at the time) working to remove all the damns that the USACE built over the years.