logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Rockefeller Foundation May Close Resilient Cities Program Even as Need Grows

Marian Conway and Ruth McCambridge
April 1, 2019
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
“2019 Nebraska Floods,” Shelby L. Bell

March 28, 2019; Bloomberg and New York Times

Last week, Bloomberg reported that the Rockefeller Foundation may be axing its Resilient Cities program, started only in 2013. The program is designed to help cities address the effects of climate change including by establishing response systems that are well thought through even in the face of incidents which are virtually unprecedented. According to Bloomberg, the effort may be closed as soon as this summer. While the article sardonically bore the label “climate changed,” Bloomberg’s Christopher Flavelle points out just how a large of a gap remains:

The potential shift comes as US cities face increasing pressure from climate change, especially following a string of major natural disasters over the past two years. And it would coincide with a pullback in climate adaptation work by the Trump administration, which has reversed policies designed to prepare communities for global warming.

Meanwhile, there is no clear roadmap, no precise model for many of the bigger crisis-fed decisions individuals and organizations are often forced to make in the absence of protocols and built-response systems of localities. A disaster comes along, and there’s no time to scratch heads and set up an exploration committee. It’s often said that the needs of many people are more important than the needs of just a few, but that does not provide comfort in the face of hard choices; it just adds another piece to the weight of deciding who loses in the race to hold back a wall of water.

A storm called a “bomb cyclone” hit the Midwest on March 15th, with pouring rain falling on frozen, snow-covered ground. The rain and runoff flooded parts of Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, raising the level of Little Sioux River 16 feet in 24 hours and covering a third of the Offutt US Air Force Base near Omaha. Winds blew at hurricane strength, gusting over 100 mph in places. Colorado registered its lowest barometric pressure in history. The Spencer Dam gave way to the Niobrara River, a tributary of the Missouri, which flows through Wyoming and Nebraska. The Gavins Point Dam in South Dakota began to strain as the reservoir it contains filled.

John Remus, the chief of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Missouri River Basin Water Management Division, is the one who manages the six major dams along 2,000 miles of waterways, most of which were built before concerns of climate change. After the Dust Bowl era in the 1930s and subsequent flooding, Congress determined that dams would solve the problems. Included in land that was submerged by new dams was 350,000 acres belonged to Native Americans. The Yankton Sioux, who did not provide consent, were paid $23 million for 2,851 acres in 2002 for the taking of their land, with some acres still in contention. The country got hydroelectric power and cheap farmland. Those dams have aged considerably since.

Here was the decision Remus faced: Should he take the risk that Gavins Point, a major dam not designed for such conditions, would hold the Missouri River at flood stage? Or, instead, should he open the spillway to ease the pressure—flooding homes, farmland, and towns?

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

“It’s human nature to think we are masters of our environment, the lords of creation,” Remus says. But, as he said, there are limits, and the storm last week that caused him so much trouble was beyond what his network of dams could control.

Remus’s decisions are guided by the Master Manual, which lists his eight purposes as authorized by Congress: “Flood control, river navigation, hydroelectric power, irrigation, water supply, water quality, recreation (such as fishing or boating), and the preservation of endangered species” without prioritizing them. Remus notes that the Engineer Corps had not incorporated climate change in planning. “Scientists say that, in the Missouri Basin, we’ll be spending more time at each end of the spectrum—longer and more severe floods, longer and more severe droughts,” Remus said, and this year, he had “nothing but bad options.”

Remus ordered the spillways open, and 100,000 cubic feet of water per second poured through. The speed of the water matched that of Niagara Falls.

When the bomb cyclone was doing its damage and topping levees, the sheriff in Bartlett, Iowa, decided to order an evacuation. Homeowner David Lueth ignored the order, though he knew river water was coming. He had lived through a flood and a levee failure in 2011 and spent his life savings to restore his land. After that storm eight years ago, Remus tried to convince the local board to move the levees. They were unwilling to spend the massive amount of money it would take for complete replacement and just shifted the levees back a bit. Following the 2011 storm, the Corps was accused of placing a higher priority on wildlife than controlling flooding. A federal judge agreed last year.

Lueth has gone from sadness to anger, questioning the effort to save Garvins Point Dam while sacrificing those downstream. Lueth’s house was a victim of the flooding this month. And new crisis decisions may be on the horizon for Remus; spring rains are right around the corner.

Meanwhile, the Bloomberg reporter speculates that the elimination of the Resilient Cities program may be the result of a change in top leadership at the Rockefeller Foundation.—Marian Conway and Ruth McCambridge

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the authors
Marian Conway

Marian Conway, the executive director of the NY Community Bank Foundation, has a Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies, Writing and a Ph.D. in Public Policy, Nonprofit Management. She has discovered that her job and education have made her a popular person with nonprofits and a prime candidate for their boards. Marian keeps things in perspective, not allowing all that to go to her head, but it is difficult to say no to a challenge, especially participating in change, in remaking a board. She is currently on eleven boards of various sizes and has learned to say no.

Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor Emerita of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.

More about: Disasters and RecoveryManagement and LeadershipNonprofit News

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Hierarchy and Justice
Cyndi Suarez
Salvadoran Foreign Agent Law Threatens Human Rights Movements
Devon Kearney
Charitable Tax Reform: Why Half Measures Won’t Curb Plutocracy
Alan Davis
Healing-Centered Leadership: A Path to Transformation
Shawn A. Ginwright
Into the Fire: Lessons from Movement Conflicts
Ingrid Benedict, Weyam Ghadbian and Jovida Ross
How Nonprofits Can Truly Advance Change
Hildy Gottlieb

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Hierarchy and Justice
Cyndi Suarez
Salvadoran Foreign Agent Law Threatens Human Rights...
Devon Kearney
Charitable Tax Reform: Why Half Measures Won’t Curb...
Alan Davis

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.