Corps Wants To Know Who Authorized Survey Agency Under Fire For Including Money With Questionnaire

The Army Corps of Engineers, under fire from several senators, is investigating who authorized a survey that paid Northwesterners to answer questions about the possible removal of dams on the Snake River, a top official said Thursday.

Lt. Gen. Joe Ballard, the corps’ chief of engineers, told members of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water that he hoped to answer their questions about the survey by next week.

“I’ve launched an investigation to find out who authorized it, who launched it and who paid for it,” Ballard said Thursday.

“It wasn’t headquarters,” he said.

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., attacked the “crazy idea” of spending Corps money to pay up to $12 each for survey responses and Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., Robert Byrd, D-Va., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., joined in raising concerns about the practice.

Two-dollar bills were included in the envelopes with questionnaires and another $10 was to be sent to respondents who agreed to follow-up interviews.

Ballard said his preliminary understanding was that only about $800 had been sent out to respondents. He said a group that works in support of the corps may have come up with the idea, but he didn’t want to say who that was.

“I’m not justifying the survey. I don’t know enough about it,” Ballard said. However, he noted, “This method, I am told, is a rather normal procedure.”

“If we at the corps were a musical instrument, we’d be a drum because there are a lot of opportunities to beat us,” Ballard told the senators.

Gorton said a friend who received the survey told him he once got a similar offer from the luxury car maker, Lexus.

“But they only offered $1,” Gorton said.

The Washington Republican, who has been a longtime critic of government efforts to protect Northwest salmon, said the surveys were slanted to elicit responses favorable to proposals to remove dams from the Snake River.

Gorton said Thursday that he would wait for results of the probe before offering additional criticism.

Corps officials earlier acknowledged they were spending $300,000 on a larger survey of 10,000 residents in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Most of that money is being spent preparing and mailing and analyzing information requested by Congress. The $2 bills and other money was part of a pilot project to better frame questions in the future, they said.

Only about 60 people participated in the follow-up phone interviews, which the company used to improve unclear or ambiguous questions, said Bill Spencer of Ag Enterprises Inc., a Fort Collins, Colo., firm.