pumps press

Issaquena County 12/11/07Wildlife Endangered by Yazoo Pumps Project?
by Jon Kalaharjkalahar@wlbt.net
A proposed project 65 years in the making from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is once again upsetting national wildlife and conservation groups.
The Yazoo Backwater Project is designed to reducing flooding in the south delta area between Rolling Fork and Vicksburg. But opponents say it will just destroy a wetland habitat for many fish and wildlife, including the Louisiana black bear.
The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership says black bears are using the south delta as a breeding ground, and cubs are becoming more and more common in Issaquena County. But they say it's that same area that will be damaged by the Yazoo Backwater Project.
The Army Corps of Engineers disagrees. "The report analyzed the impact to wetland terrestrial, aquatics, and waterfowl, and basically with the total project, you have a benefit to all those categories," said senior project manager, Kent Parrish.
The "Yazoo Pumps" are designed to remove flood waters in the south delta caused by back up from the Mississippi River. Something Parrish says happens almost every spring. Over 200,000 acres will be affected at a cost of $220 million.
Conservation officials are adamant about protecting the area, but the Army Corps of Engineers says that's their goal as well.
A revised plan has raised the pumping elevation, meaning the water has to be higher before they turn on the pumps. The Corps of Engineers will also go back after completion and re-forest over 55,000 acres.
"We see a win all the way around. The Vicksburg district went to army headquarters and asked for permission to deviate from the national economic development plan to give more benefits to the environment," said Parrish.
Conservationists are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House to veto the project which would stop it in its tracks.
The public comment portion of the project will finish on January 22nd. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will then submit its final report to the Mississippi River Commission for its approval. No date is set to begin the project.
January 6, 2008
December 12, 2007
Yazoo Pumps' impact debatedCorps of Engineers moving forward despite flood of oppositionChris Joynerchris.joyner@jackson.gannett.com
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving forward with plans to build a $220 million pumping station in the Yazoo River Basin despite opposition from conservationists and even other federal agencies.
"We could easily nominate it for the boondoggle of the millennium," Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said of the project. "It makes no environmental or economic sense."
The Yazoo Backwater Project, also known as the Yazoo Pumps, is a project to control flooding in a six-county area in west-central Mississippi by draining wetlands via a massive pumping station in the Yazoo River basin. The project has been on the federal drawing board since 1941 as part of the federal government's approach to flood control in a lower Mississippi Delta.
In 2000, when the project was last proposed, environmentalists panned the pump project for its potential impact on 200,000 acres of wetlands and wildlife habitat.
A federally commissioned economic impact study at the time found building costs far outweighed the financial benefit the impoverished region might realize.
The Environmental Protection Agency warned the corps the plan was ripe for veto, sending the pump project back to the drawing board.
Now corps officials say they have answered those concerns in a new environmental impact statement. The revised Yazoo Backwater Project includes reforestation efforts and new habitat set-asides that will improve habitat for some species like the Louisiana black bear, said senior project manager Kent Parrish.
The new plan will drain 26,300 acres of wetlands and return $1.40 in economic benefit for every dollar spent on the project, he said.
If it receives final federal approval, construction of the pumps project could begin as early as late 2008.
The corps took nearly a decade to produce the 2000 report. Parrish said, "We spent another seven years trying to get it right."
The new plan balances environmental concerns with flood protection, he said.
But this week more than 500 environmental biologists, researchers and professors sent a joint letter to the heads of the EPA and the Interior Department urging them to "take all steps necessary" to kill the project.
"Wetland losses at this scale would have catastrophic implications for the ecology of the region and for the fish and wildlife resources entrusted to the care of the Department of the Interior," the letter states. "The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley has already lost 80 percent of its original wetlands. The majority of those losses have been traced directly to the effects of federal flood control and drainage projects."
Conservationists say the corps has understated the environmental costs of the revised pump project and the effect it will have on the areas set aside as wildlife refuges.
"They take economies with the truth," said Theodore Roosevelt IV, a conservationist and great-grandson of President Roosevelt. "This project will destroy wildlife habitat and especially habitat that the Louisiana black bear thrives in."
The project is slated for the same area of the state President Roosevelt made famous in 1902 when, while on a hunt, he refused to shoot a captive black bear. The famous story became the impetus for the Teddy bear toy.
But the Roosevelts are not the only family with fond connections to the region. Madison resident William Watkins, 57, said he has hunted in the area since he was a boy.
"I was a teenager when my uncle took me there for the first time. It's just fantastic," he said.
Today he takes his own son hunting at the Eagle Lake area north of Vicksburg.
"The only reason we get to hunt over there is because of the backwater," he said. "It makes no sense. We'd be better off giving $220 million to the Corps of Engineers to leave us alone."
Corps officials insist the project will not adversely impact the ecology of the region, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is not convinced.
"We're concerned that the negative impacts of this project on fish and wildlife is larger than the corps acknowledges," said Tom Mackenzie, spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service. "The corps has not fully evaluated the extent of the negative impacts to wetlands that are crucial to support the diversity of fish and wildlife that depend on them. Further, they've also not fully addressed the negative impact to fish and wildlife throughout the Yazoo basin."
While supporters of the project say the Yazoo Pumps will be an economic boom to the mid-Delta counties, MacKenzie said the damage to the environment may be more significant to the country.
"It's our job to ensure the wildlife environment is protected. These resources belong to all of us," he said.
With resistance to the project mounting, this version of the Yazoo Pumps project faces an uphill battle in Washington.
One of the project's chief defenders, Republican Sen. Trent Lott, is retiring at the end of the year.
Lott spokesman Lee Youngblood said the senator hopes his replacement will be an advocate for the project. Those opposing the pumps do not have the best interests of Mississippians at heart, he said.
"Sen. Lott has always favored flood control projects throughout the state whether it's in (Jackson) with the Pearl River or in the Delta," he said.
Youngblood said the groups opposing the Yazoo Pumps would never be satisfied, no matter what changes the corps made.
"My guess is you won't find too many projects they would support," he said. "My guess is, deep down, they don't want flood control."
December 11, 2007
Delta pump project called ‘boondoggle’Chris Joynerchris.joyner@jackson.gannett.com
Environmental leaders called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to veto a $220 million pump project in the lower Mississippi Delta they said will destroy up to 200,000 acres of wetlands to benefit a handful of wealthy landowners.
"We could easily nominate it for the boondoggle of the millennium," said Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. "It makes no environmental or economic sense."The Yazoo Backwater Project, also known as the Yazoo Pumps, is a project to control flooding in a six-county area in west-central Mississippi by draining wetlands via a massive pumping station in the Yazoo River basin. The reclaimed land would be available for agricultural purposes, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is proposing the project, said the real benefit is the added flood protection for residents living in the backwater area.The project has been on the federal drawing board since 1941 but has faced stiff opposition from environmentalists and government scientists who claim the flood control and economic benefits are vastly outweighed by the total cost, both in terms of taxpayer dollars and environmental impact."Our county is facing many complicated environmental problems. This is not one of them," said Rebecca Wodder, president of American Rivers. "The threat posed by the Yazoo pumps can be ended quickly and easily."In its proposal, the Corps of Engineers says environmental damage to wetlands, wildlife habitat and bottomland hardwood will be offset by reforestation and other conservation programs. The project is opposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which disputes the Corps environmental assurances.If it receives final federal approval, construction of the pumps project could begin as early as late 2008
Conservation groups call on EPA to veto Miss. Delta pumps project
Associated Press
Jackson— The National Wildlife Federation and other conservation groups called Tuesday for the Environmental Protection Agency to stop a planned $220 million pump project in the lower Mississippi Delta region.Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ project would “drain and damage life-sustaining wetlands in Mississippi” and threaten a wide array of fish and wildlife.The Yazoo Backwater Project was authorized by Congress in 1941. It has undergone multiple revisions. The goal is to remove rainwater from the lower Delta that becomes impounded inside levees when the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers are at higher stages.For several decades, installing giant pumps near the confluence of the Yazoo and Steele Bayou, which drains much of the Delta, was the plan. That proposal has been modified.Last month, the Corps defended building the pumps in a crucial environmental report for the Yazoo Backwater Project, a proposal to build a pump station to drain wetlands, farmland and forests north of Vicksburg.The agency says the pumps would reduce flooding by as much as 4 1/2 feet in the region, but critics say the project is emblematic of the Corps’ flawed bureaucratic process that pours money into wasteful projects while urgent needs go unmet. Also, critics say the pumps would destroy up to 200,000 acres of wetlands.The Corps’ final environmental impact statement, the one released in November, is one step toward getting the project under way. The agency now will hold public meetings before handing the report over to top engineers for their approval.Before that happens, though, the project could be torpedoed by the EPA or the White House. The EPA says the pumps would harm the environment and says it might issue a rare veto.The NWF’s Schweiger said a veto is what conservationists want.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and American Rivers, an environmental group, also oppose the project. Rebecca Wodder, president of American Rivers, said the pumps would “damage a staggering amount of wetlands.”Theodore Roosevelt IV, great-grandson of the former president and a New York investment banker, said the pump project threatens the Louisiana black bear, which has returned to the region.The Louisiana black bear is a subspecies of the American black bear and is considered threatened.Roosevelt said it was the black bear that brought his great-grandfather to Sharkey County, Miss., for a hunt. Roosevelt said the teddy bear’s creation resulted from that trip — the accidental combination of a tethered bear in a Mississippi woods, news stories about the president’s refusal to shoot it, and a cartoonist’s eye for an arresting image.Roosevelt said the region remains a treasured location for sportsmen and lies in the heart of the Mississippi Flyway, a migration route for waterfowl.“We know that one of the single damaging effect on wildlife is destruction to habitat, specially habitat that the Louisiana black bear thrives in,” he said.On the Net:National Wildlife Federation, http://www.nwf.orgCorps of Engineers, http://www.usace.army.milAmerican Rivers, http://www.americanrivers.org
Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.
Delta Democrat Times, Greenville, on “Project still needs thought.”
From one point of view, the Yazoo Backwater Project is a flagrant example of government waste that would destroy wildlife habitat. From another, it’s badly needed, long overdue flood protection.
The truth, we suspect, is somewhere between these extremes.
The National Wildlife Federation and other conservation groups called recently for the Environmental Protection Agency to stop the planned $220 million pump project in the lower Mississippi Delta.
Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said in a conference call with reporters that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ project would “drain and damage life-sustaining wetlands in Mississippi” and threaten a wide array of fish and wildlife.
On the other side are the Corps and some residents of Sharkey and Issaquena counties who support the project. Some of these are people whose lands were flooded in 1973 — the last time the region experienced a major flood. Others are farmers who would get more use out of their lands if the project were completed.
Latest Yazoo Pump project of benefit to allThe Clarion-Ledger
There are more than 40 million hunters and anglers in the United States. I consider sportsmen as the original conservationists. After all, if our forests, waterways and marshlands are taken from us, then we can't enjoy sports that have become a passion for many of us.
As an avid hunter, I like to think that we are responsible for providing habitat for the game we hunt, and for the ecosystems that support game and other wildlife. It is one of the oldest forms of environmental advocacy in North America, owing its existence to men like President Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1902 visited the Mississippi Delta on his famous bear hunt, giving birth to the "Teddy Bear."
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, hunters and anglers currently contribute about $5 million a day from the sale of state hunting and fishing licenses and other activities and contributions to environmental conservation and protection. Hunting and fishing help to foster a relationship to the land that is crucial to future conservation efforts.
While sporting and conservation groups don't always see eye-to-eye on every issue, they often turn to one another as partners because of a common understanding that healthy ecosystems mean healthy habitats for game animals - conserving habitat.
It is for this great shared value that sportsmen, conservationists and others interested in environmental preservation should now show a united front in support of the Yazoo Backwater Pump Project. Much has been said and written about this project since its inception many years ago. But as proposed now, this is modern-day flood control, combining structures that will protect the people, homes and businesses of the south Delta while also enhancing the natural environment of the region.
The project is designed to place 55,600 acres of agricultural land under permanent conservation easements. This land currently offers few natural resource values, but when replanted as bottomland hardwood forest, as proposed, it will provide additional wildlife habitat, water quality benefits and significant environmental improvements.
The results of the reforestation will be an increase in wetlands resources in the region, an increase in terrestrial resources and an increase in aquatic resources. In addition, this reforestation will improve water quality by reducing sediment runoff.
A reforestation initiative of this size will vastly improve the habitat for all wildlife, fish and waterfowl in the south Delta. It'll also provide additional habitat for endangered species like the pondberry plant and Teddy Roosevelt's beloved Louisiana black bear.
No project on the scale of the Yazoo Backwater Pump Project is ever perfect, and nothing of this magnitude can be undertaken without some impact on the environment. But this project has been exhaustively reviewed for many years now, with significant improvements having been made to the original plan, especially in terms of environmental protection and conservation.
The net environmental impacts of this project are beneficial, as illustrated in the Corps of Engineers' Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and other detailed reports from technical experts. We've waited long enough - it is time to provide flood protection for the people who live and work in the south Delta and for the habitat which is degraded by flooding. I strongly urge my fellow hunters, fishermen and conservationists to support the Yazoo Backwater Pump Project. This should be an issue on which we all can agree.
Jim Luckett
Dublin