JUST THE FACTS

JUST THE FACTS ON THE YAZOO PUMPS PROJECT
PREPARED BY T. LOGAN RUSSELL
DECEMBER 8, 2007

FACT 1: The Vicksburg District of the US Army Corps of Engineers proposes to build the world’s largest hydraulic pumping plant at the confluence of Steele Bayou and the Yazoo River approximately 8 miles up the Yazoo from its mouth at the Mississippi River.

FACT 2: The original authorization for pumping plants in the Mississippi Delta comes from the Flood Control Act of 1941, as amended by FCA 1994, FCA 1965, and WRDA 1986. In 1962, the Chief of Engineers (not Congress) modified the 1941 plan to include connecting channels (6 Mile Cutoff and the Sunflower River-Steele Bayou Connecting Channel a/k/a The Big Ditch) between the Big Sunflower River, Little Sunflower River, Deer Creek and Steele Bayou. As such, the Vicksburg District has now diverted all the interior drainage of the entire Yazoo-Mississippi Delta to one point, the Steele Bayou Control Structure, where the COE now proposes to build the world’s largest hydraulic lift pumping plant.

In addition, the original authorization for the pumping plants (Flood Control Act of 1941) authorized pumping water down to 90’ above mean sea level and not below that level. In fact, the Flood Control Act of 1941 specifically states that lands below the 90 foot elevation are to be “dedicated to sump storage”. The Corps proposed plan entails pumping once water reaches 87’ above mean sea level and may be turned on as soon as water levels are “predicted to exceed 87 feet”. Most of the project’s economic benefits are found between the 87’ and 90’ level such that even given the Corps hocus pocus economic analysis, the project is not economically justified if built as authorized. Pumping below 90’ elevation is not legal and will not be legal unless the Corps receives additional authorization from Congress.

FACT 3: In 1800, the entire Lower Mississippi River Alluvial Valley (including portions of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Illinois) consisted of approximately 21 million acres of forested wetlands also known as bottomland hardwood forests. Today less than 5 million acres of this “American Amazon” as Secretary of the Interior Babbitt called it, remain.

FACT 4: 95% of the denuded forest was cleared to enable the production of row crops. The highest elevation and least flood prone land consists of the best soils, fine, sandy, silt loam soils well suited to cotton production. Most of that land was cleared by the mid-1930s. More recently (late 1940s to present) the land cleared has consisted of heavy, clayey soils (known locally as “gumbo”) not well suited to cotton production and only marginally suited to soybean production. Average yields are in the 25-30 bushel range versus the 50-60 bushel range in Iowa, Illinois and other grain belt states. As such, up to 4 million acres of the 16 million acres cleared for crop production was done ill advisedly from an economic standpoint. In other words, this is economically marginal farmland that should have never been cleared.

FACT 5: With completion of the Mainline Mississippi River Levee in the 1940s, annual flooding from the Big River was controlled and the Corps of Engineers has since turned most of its attention to tributary flooding. The Corps issued the original Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Yazoo Pumping Plant in 1982.

In 1989, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ordered reformulation of the uncompleted tributary projects in the Yazoo Basin. Four distinct projects were identified for review: Upper Yazoo, Upper Steele Bayou, Yazoo Backwater and Headwater Tributaries. Reformulation studies for the Upper Yazoo and Upper Steele Bayou Projects have been completed resulting in better flood control, less environmental destruction and lower costs than the original proposals, yet none of the projects was abandoned. Reformulation studies of the Yazoo Backwater Area projects began in 1993, yet the public was not involved in the process until 1997.

FACT 6: The Yazoo Backwater Area (YBWA) is located in the south Mississippi Delta and lies between the east bank Mississippi River levee (the mainline levee) on the west and the Yazoo Basin escarpment (the bluff) on the east. COE data indicates that the YBWA contains approximately 925,000 acres subject to headwater flooding from the Yazoo River, the Sunflower River and Steele Bayou and backwater flooding from the Mississippi River. The COE divides the YBWA into 5 subareas. The subareas, acreage and uncompleted projects for each are given below:

Subarea Proposed Projects “Protected” Acres

CARTER AREA +/- 30 miles of levees 102,000 ac.
SATARTIA AREA Projects completed 1976 29,000 ac.
SATARTIA EXT. AREA Floodgate 3,000 ac.
ROCKY BAYOU AREA +/-15 mi. levees w/floodgate 14,000 ac.
YAZOO AREA Pumping Plant 625,000 ac.

5 Subareas 773,000 ac.

FACT 7: Although the OMB ordered reformulation of all YBWA projects, the Vicksburg District says that “after coordination with the local project sponsors, the reformulation efforts are being concentrated in the Yazoo Subarea.” That statement could be a red flag since the local project sponsor is the Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners. In other words, it is possible that the COE is “incrementalizing” its analysis of the Yazoo Backwater Area projects such that the COE can build the Pumps sooner, the levees and floodgates later, thereby minimizing the “sticker shock” of a $400MM price tag for a comprehensive project versus incremental price tags of $200MM for the Pumps and then $200MM for levees and floodgates.

FACT 8: The COE has set the precedent for such “incrementalization” by separating the water resources planning effort for the proposed $62.4 MM Big Sunflower River “Maintenance” Project from the Yazoo Backwater Area projects, despite the fact that Big Sunflower River “Maintenance” Project Area lies almost entirely in the Yazoo Area of the Yazoo Backwater Area. (See Delta Land Trust’s “Just the Facts on the Big Sunflower River “Maintenance” Project.)
FACT 9: As part of the Reformulation process, the COE initiated a “facilitated workshops” process in April, 1997 that would purportedly entail discussion and analysis of a full range of alternatives for the Yazoo Backwater Area. The stated objective was to find common ground between the agricultural interests for the Pumps and the environmental interests against them. Landowners fall on both sides of this issue. During the third “facilitated workshop” on May 29,1997 the involved environmental activists demanded that COE provide a full briefing on how the facilitated workshop process fit into the reformulation study and on the alternatives under consideration. We were primarily concerned that despite NEPA, WRDA, FWCA and internal COE Policy to the contrary, very little information on non-structural alternatives had been provided, as opposed to the very detailed information furnished on structural alternatives. (Remember that the COE had been working on the structural alternatives as part of the Reformulation process since 1993).

FACT 10: As a result of activist demands, the COE issued a report on August 7, 1997 that included 29 alternatives: 9 non-structural only, 8 structural only and 12 combination of structural and non-structural. The National Economic Development option as indicated by the COE provided for a structural feature- a 14,000 CFS pump, a “non-structural feature”- the purchase of conservation easements on 159,000 acres of existing forested wetlands, and mitigation-driven reforestation of 18,500 acres of flood-prone farmland.

The proposed 159,000 acres of conservation easements on existing forests were completely unexpected by environmental interests. The COE’s argument for including the easements on existing forests is two-fold. One that the 14,000 CFS pump is not sufficient to reduce forestland flooding so the COE will buy the flood rights, thereby relieving the COE of the “obligation” to protect that land. And two, that if the Pumps alter the forested wetlands hydrology such that these wetlands lose their jurisdictional wetlands status, then the easements prevent the land from being cleared for farming, without CWA Section 404 and Swampbuster being involved.

Another possibility for why the COE may have included the 159,000 acres of easements on existing forestland is that the 159,000 acres of conservation easements sounds like non-structural flood control from a public relations standpoint and it gives owners of existing forestland a vested financial interest in pushing for this alternative i.e. they will be paid to allow the COE to flood their land, thereby relieving the COE of a phantom obligation since the land in question has been flooding for centuries with little economic consequence anyway because timber and wildlife production are flood tolerant land uses, although the nature of the flooding has been altered by previous Corps projects.

FACT 11: Sections 306 & 307 of WRDA 1990 authorized the Secretary of the Army to include environmental protection as a primary mission of the USACE. By June of 1990 the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works issued a “Statement of Environmental Approaches”. In June, 1995 COE Circular EC1105-2-210 “Ecosystem Restoration in the Civil Works Program” was issued. Under these new guidelines it was recognized that COE planning should explicitly recognize opportunities for environmental restoration. In fact, reductions in National Economic Development benefits could be justified in pursuit of environmental restoration.

FACT 12: As the result of the Corps’ own policy guidelines and the many environmental advantages inherent in a reforestation-based non-structural approach, the USFWS released a “Non-structural Strategy for Flood Damage Reduction” plan on August 5, 1997. In this plan, which has since been endorsed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the FWS proposed three restoration zones as follows:

CLEARED
ZONE ACRES NGVD FLOOD FREQ

1 60,000 <90 ft 0-3 year
2 181,000 90/97 ft 4-20 year
3 159,000 >97 ft 21-100 year

The Plan included priorities for each zone ranging from fee simple acquisition to easement purchases which would be funded through a variety of programs i.e. USDA Wetlands Reserve Program and Emergency Watershed Protection Program, COE Public Works Program, DOE Joint Implementation Program (carbon sequestration through photosynthesis to reduce CO2 emissions), FWS Partners for Wildlife and a number of EPA programs.

Easements would require reforestation with bottomland hardwood species and would allow cottonwood/oak interplant as an interim practice. Timber harvesting would be allowed based on approved management plan. Other property rights would be retained by the landowner, but reforested land must stay in a forested state. Primary dwellings would be relocated or flood-proofed at government expense.

FACT 13: Shortly after the FWS plan was announced, EPA contracted Dr. Leonard Shabman (then of Virginia Tech, now with Resources for the Future) to complete an objective economic assessment of the non-structural alternative. Issued in Feburary, 2000, that report entitled, “An Approach for Evaluating Nonstructural Actions with Applications to the Yazoo River (Mississippi) Backwater Area” (available at www.deltalandtrust.org) totally discredits Vicksburg District economic justification for the Pumps Project.

FACT 14: Delta Land Trust then secured funding from The McKnight Foundation to contract Dr. Dennis King (then of the University of Maryland) to determine the non-market economic values of a reforestation based non-structural alternative. Issued in December, 2000, that report entitled, “The Benefits and Costs of Reforesting Economically Marginal Cropland in the Mississippi Delta” (available at www.deltalandtrust.org) conclusively establishes that the highest and best use of marginal farmland is the production of timber, wildlife and environmental services.

FACT 15: The original deadline for release of the Vicksburg District’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on the Pumps Project was August, 1998. That deadline was moved to Fall, 1998 and then to Spring, 1999 and then to September, 1999. In the interim, the chief local sponsor for the project- the Mississippi Levee Board based in Greenville, Mississippi- initiated a series of “consensus building” meetings. The first such meeting was held on March 30, 1999 at Levee Board offices in Greenville, Mississippi. At that meeting, Charlie Baxter, a now retired biologist with FWS in Vicksburg, Mississippi unveiled a “compromise” plan that entails four elements: 1- Construction of a pumping plant with no pumping below 90.7 feet (the two year flood elevation) 2- Flowage easement purchases from willing sellers on approximately 100,000 acres of marginal farmland below 90.7 feet 3- Loss of crop insurance benefits for landowners at 90.7 feet and below that continued to farm and 4-reimbursement to county treasuries of any property tax revenues lost as the result of the easement purchases.

FACT 16: Note the extreme differences in the FWS’s position in August, 1997 as established by its “Non-Structural Strategy for Flood Damage Reduction” referenced above and its April, 1999 position as unveiled by Baxter at the Levee Board meeting. Given that the FWS is again in opposition to any pumping plant being a part of flood damage reduction in the YBWA, it appears that Baxter was working largely on his own. To this day, EPA has never endorsed the FWS 1999 Plan and has stood by its original endorsement of the FWS 1997 Plan.

FACT 17: At the conclusion of the Levee board meeting of 3-30-99, the parties agreed to a second meeting on 4-19-99. At that meeting, the environmental groups established that we were not interested in additional meetings without first having the DEIS. Upon making this declaration, Service biologist Charlie Baxter suggested that the DEIS itself was not necessary, just the information included in it. Delta Land Trust has qualified legal opinion that unless the information is included in a formal DEIS, the COE has no obligation to insure the accuracy of said information. Thus it would be possible for the COE to provide one set of information in the informal meetings and completely different information in the DEIS.

FACT 18: A third meeting was held on 5-11-99. On 5-13-99 the environmental organizations issued a statement that they were withdrawing from the “Consensus Building Process” because there had been no indication that a true non-structural alternative was under consideration. Despite the withdrawal of the environmental groups, the Levee Board, Corps, FWS, EPA and others met on 5-26-99 and again on 7-22-99. In hindsight it is now clear that the “Consensus Building Process” was structured from the start to secure environmentalist support for the FWS 1999 Plan that includes construction of a 14,000 CFS Pumping Plant and that the Corps has used and will continue to use the “Consensus Building Process” as evidence of NEPA compliance.

FACT 19: In November, 1999, a draft copy of a Mississippi State University study entitled, “Implications of Providing Managed Wetlands/Flood Protection Options Using Two-Way Floodgates in Conjunction with the Yazoo Backwater Pumps” was obtained through an Open Records Request by the Clarion Ledger. The study was commissioned by Delta Council but when the preliminary results did not confirm the agribusiness lobby’s contention that the Pumps were economically and hydrologically justified, the well connected good old boy organization based in Stoneville, MS took steps to insure that the report was “buried”. MSU senior management agreed but not before Clarion Ledger environmental reporter Bruce Reid found out about the report and filed the Open Records Request.

The report states that crop acreage has increased substantially since the mid-1950s despite contentions that flooding so bad the government should build a $250 million pumping plant to protect farms there. The report also refutes the notion that flooding is bad for wildlife, one of the latest claims by project proponents in their attempt to co-opt the environmental issue in favor of the Pumps. And the report observes that a pumping plant and water management plan to control flooding and possibly enhance wildlife habitat may not be as effective as desired based on computer models. In some years, there may not be enough water to benefit wildlife; in other years, the risk of spring flooding would still be present even with the Pump operating.

Rather than complete the “draft” report and publish it, Mississippi State took the position that it did not have sufficient funding available for the research necessary to complete it. The truth is that Delta Council used its influence with senior management at MSU to kill the report.

FACT 20: In December, 1999, the Gulf Restoration Network issues report that analyzes purported benefits of the Pumping Plant. The report found that there were a total of 1352 structures in the 1-100 year floodplain of the YBWA including 396 house trailers, 871 residential structures and 50 commercial buildings. The total market value of all 1352 structures was $38,607,000. Of those 1352 structures, only 322 were in the 1-10 year floodplain that the Pumping Plant would most protect.

FACT 21: In February, 2000, a 139 page study prepared under contract for EPA by Dr. Leonard Shabman and Ms. Laura Zepp of the Virginia Water Resources Research Center is released. The study concludes that “agricultural flood protection benefits for a Pumps Project appear insufficient to justify the costs.” As an alternative to the Pumping Plant, Shabman and Zepp recommended a “watershed approach” and stated that, “If the problems and opportunities of the watershed area are to be addressed with federal funds, nonstructural actions can be implemented for budget cost significantly lower than the cost for a pump.” Among other flaws, the Shabman/Zepp report showed that the Corps had over-estimated the agricultural benefits of the Pumps by a staggering $144 million and demonstrates that even if the project is built, farm profits in the area will still come only from farm subsidy payments.

FACT 22: Release of the Shabman/Zepp information prompted increasing rhetoric from Pumps proponents claiming that the Pumps would save homes and lives and that the residents of the area are at constant risk from flooding. However, information obtained from FEMA indicated that residential flood protection does not justify construction of the Pumps. During the 24 year period from 1979 to 2002, ony 62 properties within the project area filed flood insurance claims under the National Flood Insurance Program Collectively, these properties filed 209 claims for damages totaling $1.67 million.

FACT 23: Also in February, 2000, The Washington Post ran a series of articles by staff writer Michael Grunwald detailing how Corps staff rigged an economic study that justified expansion of the lock and dam system on the Upper Mississippi River. This article lead to serious examination of Corps activities by Pentagon staff, pledges by Clinton Administration officials that significant changes would be made to the Corps and a review of Corps policy and practices by the National Academy of Sciences. In the end, the US Senate stepped in and blocked any meaningful Corps reform.

FACT 24: The Environmental Working Group issues a report in April, 2000 illustrating that the top 10% of all farmers in Mississippi received 83% of all farm subsidy payments received by Mississippi farmers from 1996-1998, giving Mississippi the most uneven distribution of farm program payments in the country.

FACT 25: Mississippi native Sam Hamilton, Regional Director of the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s SE Region writes General Phillip Anderson, Division Engineer of the USACE, Mississippi Valley Division with regards to the role of federal water resource policy in perpetuating poverty in the Delta. Hamilton writes of “concern that federal, publicly financed flood control/drainage programs and policies have been instrumental in transforming the nation’s largest and most ecologically rich flood-plain ecosystem into a region that is considered impoverished by most social, economic and environmental standards.”

FACT 26: In September, 2000, The Washington Post expands its focus from the Upper Mississippi River Lock & Dam project to a comprehensive review of Corps projects and policies nationwide. The second article in a five article series investigates the Corps activities in the Mississippi Delta.

FACT 27: Also in September, 2000 the Corps issued the reformulated Draft Environmental Impact Statement as required by OMB in 1991. In its order for reformulation, OMB required that the Corps prepare a plan that provided for more flood protection of urban areas, less agricultural intensification and less environmental destruction. Sadly, the 2000 DEIS failed on all fronts. According to Charlie Baxter of FWS, “Despite the fact that the Corps’ plan offers some hope of reforesting high-risk farmland, their proposal is rooted in the same federal drainage policies that have failed to produce an economically or environmentally sustainable Delta,” Baxter said. The Reformulated DEIS was roundly and universally attacked by every environmental, conservation and taxpayer group that reviewed it.

FACT 28: In early 2001, the Corps went on the offensive by issuing letters and creating a website to protest the spread of so-called “erroneous information about the project”. Go to www.mvk.usace.army.mil/offices/pp/Yazoobackwater/backwater.asp to see the erroneous information the Corps is circulating to combat so-called erroneous information being written about the features of the project as described in the DEIS.

FACT 29: Due to protestations by environmental and conservation groups, the Mississippi Supreme Court’s ruling on the Water Quality Certification permit for the Big Sunflower River “Maintenance” Project and official comments by federal resource agencies in response to the Reformulated DEIS, the Corps delayed issuance of the Final Reformulated DEIS and instead implemented a process to ground truth the acreage of wetland resources in the YBWA as part of the “Wetlands Appendix”.
Field sampling by staff from the Corps and EPA occurred from June 2-14, 2003. A draft report issued by EPA in November, 2003 entitled “An Estimate of Wetland Extent in the Lower Yazoo Basin Using an EMAP Probabilistic Sampling Design” indicates that there are approximately 188,000 acres of jurisdictional wetlands in the 100 year floodplain of the YBWA. What conclusions the Corps will draw about the impact of the Yazoo Pumps on these wetlands will not be known until the FEIS is issued, but preliminary indications are not encouraging.

FACT 30: In August, 2003, Earthjustice attorneys Stephen Roady and Keri Powell issued a Notice of Intent to Sue letter to Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee for violations of the Endangered Species Act in connection with the Yazoo Pumps Project. The Corps promptly responded by initiating endangered species consultation on pondberry with FWS so filing of the lawsuit has thus far not been necessary, although Roady and Powell have recently requested similar consulting for the Louisiana Black Bear and it remains to be seen how the Corps will respond to that request.

FACT 31: Senators Cochran (R-MS) and Lott (R-MS) have been consistently including funding for the Yazoo Pumps in various spending bills while Senator John McCain to prevent the 2003 appropriation. Despite Meanwhile, the President’s FY 2004 budget cancelled funding for the Yazoo Pumps and other Corps Civil Works projects across the country.

FACT 32: Data obtained from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) indicated that from 1979-2003, federal flood insurance claims were filed on only 62 properties in the YBWA for a grand total of $1.67 MM in claims or less than $70K per year. As such, it is quite evident to even the most biased observer that there is not a residential/commercial/industrial flooding problem in the YBWA.

FACT 33: Despite scientific studies by LSU and a formal request and emotional pleadings by the Saint Bernard Parish Police Jury and many other individuals and organizations dating at least to 1997, the Corps refused to close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO). Mr. GO as it is called locally was a primary cause of the levee failures in New Orleans (along with faulty engineering design and construction of the levees, also a Corps responsibility).

FACT 34: The Mississippi River Mainline Levee system has been built on not one, but two active earthquake faults. The New Madrid Fault runs north and south from Missouri into North Mississippi, while the White River fault runs east-west from Mississippi into Arkansas. Concentration of water between the levees increases downward pressure on these faults, making an earthquake and resultant levee damage much greater. The USGS has projected a 25% chance of a major earthquake on the New Madrid Fault by the year 2050.

FACT 35: Despite environmental litigation to prevent getting the dirt from forested wetlands on the interior of the levee, the Corps has been digging dirt from these wetlands to raise and repair the Mainline Levee for much of this century. This results in less protection of the levee from wind and wave action and hydraulic pressure during Mississippi River floods. Unlike the last levee crevasses during the 1927 flood, there are few forested wetlands on the protected side to slow the water from a levee break. I am firmly convinced that it should be US national priority to reforest all land between the levees (allowing one acre of open land per 100 acres for wildlife food plots) and reforest a one mile strip on the protected side of levee on both sides of the river as a buffer in the event of natural or manmade (terrorist incident) levee failure.

FACT 36: In November, 2007, the Corps has issued the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, which calls for a 14,000 CFS pumping plant to be used when water reaches 87’ elevation and voluntary reforestation on up to 55,000 acres. Environmentalists have requested that the US Environmental Protection Agency veto the project under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act which gives EPA this right and that the White House Council on Environmental Quality request a Cabinet level review of the project.

FACT 37: The comment period on the Yazoo Backwater Area Reformulation is open until later this month. Concerned citizens can oppose the project by emailing the Corps at: yazoobackwater@usace.army.mil. I suggest the following message:

I OPPOSE THE YAZOO PUMPS BASED ON ENVIRONMENTAL, FISCAL, LEGAL AND MORAL GROUNDS. I SUPPORT RING LEVEES AROUND COMMUNITIES, ELEVATION AND RELOCATION OF THE FEW AFFECTED STRUCTURES AND MANDATORY REFORESTATION OF FLOOD PRONE FARMLAND VIA FLOWAGE EASEMENTS.

SIGNED,
YOUR NAME

Due to the ecological damage to wetlands and endangered species and the economic superiority of the true non-structural alternative, I am categorically opposed to construction of the Pumping Plant regardless of the environmental features that might be included with it. As demonstrated by the EPA/Shabman analysis and the Delta LandTrust/King analysis, the highest and best use of the economically marginal farmland in the YBWA is the production of timber, wildlife and environmental services, not the production of row crop. This situation would persist even if the Pumping Plant were built. Another compelling argument against building the Pumps is that, despite the expenditure of billions of flood control dollars, the Delta is one of the most economically impoverished areas in the United States. Construction of the Yazoo Pumps will do nothing to change that.

© Copyright, T. Logan Russell. 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. All Rights Reserved.