CONCORD, Mass – Should there be a lapse in Fiscal Year 2011 funding the federal government shutdown will affect the services of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District in the following ways:

• The district will identify the minimum workforce necessary to support activities that are considered exempt from the shutdown, protect against imminent threats to life and property and safeguard records. This includes all active-duty military personnel and some civilian personnel who support exempt activities. All other ‘non-exempt’ employees will be placed in a ‘non-pay’ status.
• Operations will continue on some activities that are either directly funded by available carryover appropriations – both civil works and military – to the extent prior year funds are available or for which the ordering agency has provided funding authority and determined that the work is exempt from its shutdown criteria.
• Operations will continue on any military environmental remediation activity begun before Sept. 30, 2010.

Examples of exempt projects and activities that will continue to operate during a shutdown without regard to available funding include:

• Operations and security of Corps of Engineers operated Hurricane Barriers in New Bedford, Mass., Providence, R.I., and Stamford Conn.;
• Operations and security of the 31 New England Operated Flood Damage Reduction Projects in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont; 
• Operation and security of the Cape Cod Canal to include the marine traffic control center and its two highway and one railroad bridges.

Specific ‘non-exempt’ projects that will not continue to operate or offer services during a shutdown include operations at all associated Corps recreational areas. Should there be a lapse in FY11 funding, all Corps-operated recreation areas at the 31 Corps flood risk management dams and reservoirs in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont will be closed beginning Saturday, April 9, 2011. Affected recreation areas would not reopen until after the shutdown is lifted.

Corps parks leased to partner agencies and concessionaires will remain open, but cannot be supported by the Corps while the shutdown is in place. Beginning Saturday, April 9, 2011, and continuing through the end of the shutdown, if it goes into effect, no visitors will be allowed into, or reservations accepted for, Corps recreation facilities. For more information about the New England District go to the website: http://www.nae.usace.army.mil.