Red dawn

A Congressional sub-committee is investigating allegations that the U.S. Army Corp deliberately cut its budget to use Lake Erie as a liquid landfill.

(Lisa DeJong, The Plain Dealer)

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. Senate subcommittee is reviewing allegations that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deliberately cut money budgeted for dredging the Cuyahoga River, so that it could avoid disposing of the toxic sludge safely.

Sen. Rob Portman sent a letter Thursday to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, asking for all documents related to the Corps' 2016 federal appropriation, the money allocated to the agency by the federal government. Portman also asked for a list of other projects that the Corps singled out for less funding than the White House sought in its 2016 budget request to Congress.

Carter is ordered to provide the documents no later than April 7.

"I want answers," said Portman, a Republican who chairs the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a statement.

At issue is where to put the sludge dredged from the bottom of the Cuyahoga River, to make it possible for giant freighters to navigate the river.

Last year, Congress, as it has in the past, appropriated $9.54 million for Cleveland harbor. The bulk of that was to pay for dredging the full navigable length of the Cuyahoga River and for proper confined-facility disposal of that dredge.

That's as opposed to the Corps' preference to just dump much of that dredge directly into Lake Erie offshore of Cleveland -- a proposal vehemently, and so far successfully, opposed by Ohio officials and by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency because of toxins in the dredge.

In his letter, Portman cited a cleveland.com editorial that described how the Corps lobbied the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to reduce its funding for the Cleveland Harbor project.

Lt. Col. Karl Jansen later confirmed that the Corps did ask for less money than the White House allotted.

Portman described the move in the letter to Carter as an "apparently self-inflicted budget-cut."

The cut prompted Will Friedman, head of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority to alert Portman that the Corps was trying to "circumvent" a federal judge's order that banned open lake dump.

"Part of the frustration with the Corps is that it's not forthcoming with information," Friedman said. "I'm pleased Sen. Portman is using the authority of his committee to figure out what's going on."

Craig Butler, head of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, also praised Portman for taking a "substantial action" against the Corps rather than just talking about it.

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Buffalo District has not received a letter from Sen. Rob Portman, and it would be inappropriate for us to comment at this time," a spokesman stated in an email.

Read the Portman letter below: