Controversial Mississippi flood control project gets $221M more, but Louisiana worries remain | One Tammany | nola.com

2022-10-14 21:46:31 By : Mr. Lewis Wei

A flood-prevention project on the Pearl River near Jackson, Miss., has drawn the concern of some Louisiana governmental agencies and businesses along the lower Pearl River in Louisiana. 

A flood-prevention project on the Pearl River near Jackson, Miss., has drawn the concern of some Louisiana governmental agencies and businesses along the lower Pearl River in Louisiana. 

A controversial flood control project near Jackson, Mississippi, that Louisiana officials and environmental groups have long opposed is gaining new momentum following disastrous flooding there in late August that exacerbated problems with Jackson's drinking water supply.

U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, announced last week that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to use $221 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for construction of the flood project, pending the agency's final approval. The Corps also agreed to provide an additional $700,000 to complete a federal validation study for what has been called the One Lake project, Wicker said in the news release.

The total construction cost of the project, which involves dredging and widening the Pearl River and putting in an underwater dam below Interstate 20 near Jackson, will cost an estimated $342 million. The local sponsor, the Rankin-Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District, which has taxing authority, will have to come up with about $10 million, Keith Turner, an attorney for the district, said.

Proponents in Mississippi argue that the project is needed to prevent catastrophic river floods, like those that occurred in the Jackson area 1979 and 1983. In his news release, Wicker said that he took Michael Connor, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, on a tour of the area as it was flooding following the rainfall in late August that caused heavy flooding.

Turner said that the flooding would have been worse if the same heavy rainfall had occurred at a different time of year. August tends to be a dry month, he said, and the river was low with a lot capacity. But the flooding did call attention to the project, he said.

"As the highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Secretary Connor will use the results of the pending study to make a final determination on the project," Wicker said.

But the project has drawn staunch opposition downstream in Mississippi and Louisiana. In St. Tammany Parish some people fear places like the Honey Island Swamp will be starved of freshwater flow and that salinity could increase and threaten fragile wetlands. The Pearl is also home to two federally protected endangered species, the Gulf sturgeon and the ringed sawback turtle.

A public hearing in Slidell in 2018 drew more than 300 people, including fishers, who spoke against the plan. The Louisiana Legislature, the St. Tammany and Washington Parish Councils as well as the Slidell City Council and Pearl River Town Council also lodged their objections.

Louisiana state Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell, has been a vocal critic of the project, and she said Tuesday that Wicker's announcement was unexpected.

"Alarm bells are going off," she said.

Hewitt said that she plans to get the Lower Pearl River Basin Task Force that was created in 2018 back together. The panel consists of Louisiana lawmakers, local officials and representatives of state agencies and was created in response to efforts in Mississippi to get the project funded.

The America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 had emerged from a Senate committee with language that would have made the One Lake project eligible for engineering and design funding before Corps approval of the project, according to Hewitt.

U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, added a provision requiring a full vetting by the Corps before funding could be released, including consideration of downstream effects, his office said at the time.

Hewitt said that she has not seen the Corps' final Environmental Impact Statement. There will be further opportunity for public comment, she said. But the 2018 language means that the Corps will have to look at what the project will do outside of the Jackson area, she said.

"I feel pretty confident that they'll never be able to address our concerns downstream," she said.

Turner said that after the Corps reviews the final environmental impact statement, the district anticipates a decision document from the Corps sometime in early spring.

If the answer is yes, he said, engineering and design work might begin later next year. Construction itself will be a three-year process. About 50% of the land involved is held by public entities, he said.

Hewitt remains skeptical of the project and the motivation behind it. "They are always trying to justify it as a flood control project," she said of Mississippi officials. "We see it as a development project."

Andrew Whitehurst of Health Gulf agreed. "This is a business plan that may or may not fix flooding, but it will put more development in the flood plain," he said.

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U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise inserted language into America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 that ensures the controversial One Lake project on t…

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