FOREWORD: In response to the growing environmental sensitivity which swept the United States in the 1970s, evident in myriad laws, executive orders, and regulations, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needed to change considerably its way of planning and developing civil works projects. Soon after the National Environmental Policy Act came into force in January 1970, Lieutenant General Frederick J. Clarke, then Chief of Engineers, created an Environmental Advisory Board of outstanding environmentalists to help insure that this redirection was done wisely and sensitively. The subsequent relationship between the Corps and the Board was often turbulent; occasionally both Corps officers and Board members despaired that any constructive dialogue could be established. That such a dialogue did in fact develop and finally flourish reflects the commitment of many people who were determined to be responsive to each other’s concerns.
This monograph, the first in the Corps’ Environmental History Series, transcends the immediate topic, for, in telling the history of the Environmental Advisory Board, Dr. Reuss also relates some of the policy struggles within the Corps which Environmental Advisory Board recommendations often generated. Consequently, this study forms part of the story of one of the most dynamic and introspective periods in Corps history.
