Elizabeth B. Drew

As times change so do the nation’s needs and priorities. But the Army Corps of Engineers just keeps rolling along as it has for decades, working one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, winning more than $1 billion a year from the Congress to straighten rivers, build dams, and dig canals that frequently serve only narrow interests and too often inflict the wrong kinds of change on the environment. Here the Atlantic’s Washington editor tells how the Engineers do it, and suggests that a changing public opinion may at last force a change in their habits.