Posted on April 13, 2026
By Shawn Davis, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District
LOS ANGELES — Officials from San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties met with senior leaders of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District on April 7 at the district’s headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.
The meeting focused on coordinating efforts to better serve communities across Southern California and discussing ongoing changes at the agency.
The seven-county flood directors meeting is normally an annual event, but the 2025 meeting was postponed due to the then-ongoing federal government shutdown, leading this event to be a more comprehensive synchronization between local partners and the LA District since their last meeting in 2024.
A major focus of the meeting was the new “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” initiative. The nationwide plan is designed to streamline processes, increase efficiency and accelerate the delivery of key projects.
“I think we can all get behind that,” said Col. Andrew J. Baker, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District commander. “We’re all about serving the population, providing safety and security — we want to be able to do that, and frankly, these initiatives help us do that in a faster way.”
The meeting, which included both in-person and virtual participants, enabled the LA District to apprise local partners on the changes being implemented across USACE and what that means for the communities that rely on LA District projects.
A major topic, especially for counties in the Los Angeles County Drainage Area, was USACE’s growing emphasis on giving local communities more power to drive their own projects. Daria Mazey, the district’s plan formulation branch chief, explained that recent amendments to the Water Resources Development Act now allow non-federal partners to conduct their own feasibility studies and even carry out federally authorized projects.
“We have learned that we need to provide some assistance and access to people at each step of the way for these to be successful, and now we have the ability to do that based on some of these amendments,” Mazey said.
This new partnership model, where projects remain under USACE authority but are driven locally, is designed to cut costly delays.
“What we found is that regular engagements with the assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works during the development of the study and the proposed recommendation are really helpful in terms of getting a successful authorization in the end,” Mazey said.
These changes also affect counties outside LACDA where the LA District conducts coastal dredging for navigation and shoreline protection. The district is heavily involved in annual maintenance dredging across the Southern California coast. These projects operate on time-constrained cycles because of seasonal weather patterns, making them sensitive to permitting delays.
Such delays can lead to off-cycle dredging projects, which can inconvenience communities that rely on their shorelines for tourism and recreation. The new initiative provides a direct solution by giving municipalities more control. Provisions in the Water Resources Development Act now allow them to fund their own studies or, in some cases, even manage the projects themselves, giving them the flexibility needed to avoid disruptive delays.”
Matt Frary, assistant deputy director for Los Angeles County Public Works, spoke about how the initiative can help local communities speed up project delivery.
“It goes back to the BINP — the spirit, the intent, that is to provide this type of resilience and risk reduction, flood risk mitigation more efficiently and realize that public benefit rapidly before something else does happen,” said Frary. “So, I think it’s very in line with the whole BINP effort, really reducing this exact kind of red tape.”
The leaders also reviewed lessons learned from recent emergency response operations to enhance future coordination. USACE is an active participant in emergencies involving its projects but can also apply its expertise to support the Federal Emergency Management Agency as directed by the president under the Stafford Act, as it did during the 2025 Southern California wildfires, by clearing debris in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena communities. The “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” initiative does not affect USACE’s execution of its emergency response support to natural and man-made disasters.
The LA District is committed to implementing the “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” initiative to serve its communities in the Southern California region. To stay informed on current affairs of the district, visit https://www.spl.usace.army.mil/.
