United States Army Corps of Engineers

The United States Army Corps of Engineers is the military engineering branch of the United States Army, with three mission areas: the Engineer Regiment, military construction and civil works. Its roots lie in the Continental Congress, which authorized a chief engineer for the Army in 1775, and the corps as it is known today was organized on 16 March 1802, when it was stationed at West Point and made the base of a military academy. Its civil works plan, design, build and operate locks and dams, flood protection systems and waterway dredging, and it administers the Clean Water Act Section 404 program. Its hydroelectric projects provide about a quarter of United States hydropower capacity. The corps is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has about 37,000 civilian and military personnel, roughly 97 percent of them civilians, led by a lieutenant general who serves as chief of engineers and commanding general.