tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37440267065469105462024-03-05T11:17:45.828-08:00Friends of the Sunflower RiverFriends of the Sunflower River is all about appreciating and caring for the lonely little river that winds its way through the center of the Mississippi Delta, from Friars Point to Clarksdale, from Mound Bayou & Merigold to Sunflower; from Indianola to Anguilla, from Holly Bluff to Vicksburg.(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-59627671117468832332010-10-19T07:12:00.000-07:002010-10-19T07:14:52.702-07:00Here we have a video taken last year on the Sunflower River.<div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUQqoWG0wNc&feature=email&email=comment_received">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUQqoWG0wNc&feature=email&email=comment_received</a></div><div><br /></div><div>More great videos to come!</div>Driftwood City International Youth Hostelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05302622246868341363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-61196466151152740532010-08-25T11:38:00.000-07:002010-08-25T11:47:19.243-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyCbjl-CY4fY-kunpovRt9SC-4VYB6e33DXHkoItadDZ0mlQyjI0ZysdYauRIqPQB06SKMbzEs-xw3_ddUl83p7vipnMvpzPRqlEJI3RqhKlg7Ggf1WjNTfDNzAAqsZB3pyPTnl2EJsO19/s1600/IMG_3871.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyCbjl-CY4fY-kunpovRt9SC-4VYB6e33DXHkoItadDZ0mlQyjI0ZysdYauRIqPQB06SKMbzEs-xw3_ddUl83p7vipnMvpzPRqlEJI3RqhKlg7Ggf1WjNTfDNzAAqsZB3pyPTnl2EJsO19/s200/IMG_3871.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509419775751336706" /></a><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULHDhwNlCDBhc1Nep0mVi1s-Srug-Q0vHd3OcX5Zgcfo6H-I9D-jPpKHwTCtVS4q5ZRTNB7nqU8ii56SLyXg-newr8Ki9x41NGrFmGM89GhD6ZQdMixpD83uSacyYmXJOhyphenhyphenqplSuZw-tw/s200/IMG_3874.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509419401497726194" /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Sighting report: On August 18th a Green Heron was Sighted on the Sunflower River. Have any animals sightings you would like to share with us? Email me at Quapawdelta@gmail.com with your picture and a comment of where you took the picture and anything else that you would like to include!<img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ8DJgDbws-bnYQJsh6T5b7s3ijZhjyzTcw6N9-m4vrkt85DXkZ-Xf6v4q5W5_KsX1GLFfnYRY49Ns6xpjIiD-MZbDxDfGuyY5sHJAfmlz65P4WH5bQkc2EJzQkxudB2Uw0qw4Ys3qHYxz/s320/IMG_3837.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509420610934926706" />Driftwood City International Youth Hostelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05302622246868341363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-82179557314350417742010-08-25T11:08:00.000-07:002010-08-25T11:34:52.286-07:00<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDT8qjpaJQDoN1Afzo9u4CwNAcdZW7z5wBYYKKxvBv9YDNHoZCHhD5MH49XyTEjeOglSUnaQJS6QHZrn3BxeBy_fv67sDJfPG3CjrM7ScyMMmvREV0XL4umKvg6n_0l39EJ5CYlKTJJVoB/s200/IMG_3553_2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509416464347127314" /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTqeIbcqF-FE_sTr9R1UltneYc4GWhLER2tIX3oEkvzT3fbrwETggj0kd4ybJsLqUet4PHf4AqpqDOj5ojQOEC-s_zgtsZNQQFzjWMSAaEZo5WXXkCywjizrverXXDMGZYdoQHjTl8OZDd/s200/IMG_3522.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509415945511934306" /><br />Two Quapaw employees, Charles Wright and TommyOwen take their canoes out on the Sunflower River in Clarksdale, Mississippi. I (Tommy Owen) enjoy the river very much, and wish it was getting more attention from other residents and tourist alike. It <img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy8QkUcnCpHJ-en4G1WrZQWtglis0CHq75_NLHfZm5ejl-8382hafuP4oAnG5n9QJEbMmegANuU-90h6JKC8uqJFtKhdOybFHfPuqsZM88I9Vbo2F7xmoaRDx-jIhWHOLic1sx21vwc2j-/s320/IMG_3495.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509415740035202418" />certainly is overlooked as a paddling river. It's tranquil, placid, and home for a variety of wildlif<img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjYfwxOxZtVtGCiOH6e4tUuVdblGtLSyYSgMkhAOKPAK0WSQIuuEpbDCbQR7EZGNLQGmi5URGkyhmvL05I2YEf1bqJaFKblylLLD2JCGEsIQDbF315oHNilzTuDaH_pn6poQwCrFjcQB4C/s320/IMG_3507.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509414946677687378" />e. Stuck in the city of Clarksdale and ever wondered what it is like in the natural side of the Delta? Sunflower River! Summer fun isaround the corner, however during the spring and fall it can be just as enjoyable. During the winter explore the river banks and discover nature frozen in time. on August 10th,Charles and I took our canoes out and headed upstream to see what wecould find, and to see how much natural blockage had occurredfrom falling trees, rogue branches,and the low water levels.<img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNL9aSio3-44qrV67Ym_PrcqHg5WoY_jJezXsO5hyXJG_N8ghqzguciVRgKfvMHWs7fuVDVhNNmz8MYfLp2BAlCYtjkMWRxw2Ns_wX3-AZRRVpqBhZeR9EnUktljKUygeiMrWBvv3OFfJ/s320/IMG_3576.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509415211211265330" />Driftwood City International Youth Hostelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05302622246868341363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-13549782549930823062009-03-13T11:25:00.000-07:002009-03-13T11:51:13.395-07:00Preamble: Anguilla to Vicksburg<br />2009 Ruskey & Clark Sunflower River Expedition<br />"The journey of the Ram & the Rhino (Beaver)"<br /><br />Welcome to all who have become new members of the Friends of the Sunflower River and a big “Thank You” all who have renewed your memberships!<br /><br />Soon to be sent DAY I the first installment of seven days of the 2009 Ruskey & Clark Sunflower River Expedition Part V, Anguilla to Vicksburg.<br /><br />The remaining six days of the 2009 expedition will be sent out in consecutive fashion over the next couple of weeks, as we get them written. We are on “river time” in the reporting, just as we were on river time in the canoes. The last five years 2005-2009 have allowed us to explore the Big Sunflower beginning to end, so we might have some conclusions to draw, some insights to share, and are compiling a Big Sunflower List with the following entries: the Best Landing, the Best Section to Paddle, the Worst Section to Paddle, the Best Woods, the Best Camp, the most Friendly Town, the Worst Dump, the Trashiest Home, the Trashiest Farm, the Trashiest Hunting Camp, the Best Birding, the Best Fishing, the Most Fishes, the Most Owls, the Most Wildlife Overall, the Cleanest County, the Trashiest County, the Most Dumped Refrigerators per Mile, and other categories to be decided upon.<br /><br />Also we have chosen the Big Sunflower Home of the Year 2009 for the Friends of the Sunflower River, “that home located directly on the banks of the river that best cares for its location and makes the river a better place.”<br /><br />We will be sharing with you our raw journals, transcribed verbatim, exactly as they were written in the first light of the day next to a smoky fire with a pot full of cowboy coffee brewing nearby, first birds beginning to sing, the reflections of the brightening sky seen in the river, the tangle of woods & vines beginning to become distinguished out of the darkness, the canoes bumping each other in the first puffs of wind, our wooden steeds impatiently tethered to shore. Our versions of the day will be posted side by side, the two different perspectives will help you better understand the full picture, maybe similar to how the Lewis & Clark journals work side-by-side. Sorry about the bad grammar, run-on sentences, uncompleted phrases, etc. Our first & foremost goal is to honestly report what we’ve seen, felt, smelled and otherwise experienced – and if there is a little spilled coffee, a few cold rain drops and some smudges of mud – well, that’s just part of the story!<br /><br /><br />Mike’s Student Sydney illustrated one of our adventures – up a tree with a camera, a snake on the limb and a gator underneath! Thank you Sydney for the great illustration!<br /><br />For relief, pleased enjoy a few photos & drawings sprinkled in for affirmation & documentation and the sharing of places of great beauty, and other places of disgust and utter astonishment. Also, Mike’s students at St. Ann’s have illustrated a few of our adventures, as above. Yes, we did have encounters with snakes & gators!<br /><br /><br />When your canoe gets stuck in a floating trash pit that clogged an entire river all you can do is sit in amazement and laugh – before you break down and cry –<br /><br /><br />Maybe on the river too long? I emerged from the twilight zone of Delta National Forest sporting a Beard of Spanish Moss.<br /><br />Introduction:<br /><br />We have been doing this every February for the past four years, paddling the length of the Sunflower River section by section, Year One we explored the tributaries above Clarksdale, “the Upper Sunflower,” (if you will) first out of the fields below Friars Point, next day following the small branch out of Long Lake where the new pumps have been installed. Day three we followed Mill Creek around the backside of Jonestown from its connection with the Yazoo Pass near Hwy 61, and then the last day we paddled into Clarksdale from Eagle’s Nest/Clover Hill. Year Two we pushed off from the Quapaw Landing in downtown Clarksdale and paddled the “Middle Sunflower” as far as Dockery Plantation before we had to bail out due to the eruption of my strange rash. Year Three it was Dockery to Sunflower. Year Four we returned to Mile 120, the hamlet of Sunflower in Sunflower County, and dropped the canoe over the steep muddy bank there with some trepidation for the surely upcoming surprising twists & turns coming our way. The river undergoes significant floodplain increase past its confluence with the Quiver River, below which it truly feels like the “Big Sunflower.” Year Five (2009) we intend to paddle from Anguilla to Vicksburg and explore the river as it flows through Delta National Forest and the infamous Big Sunflower Diversion Canal.<br /><br />2009 was to be our reward for 5 years of hardship – and yes, it was indeed refreshing to be paddling in the big woods of Delta National Forest, one of the last wild wetland refugees of any contiguous size in the Mississippi Valley – but once again it was not short of more unpleasant discoveries, hard paddling, and tricks of the river. What kept us going? A little inertia, a few cups of cowboy coffee river style (made with bayou water), a little determination to finish the story unfinished, and a lot of hard paddling!<br /><br />Why do we do this in February?<br /><br />If you average out all of the historical rises & falls of the Sunflower River, the highest water is usually found during the winter months January-February-March, for the obvious reason of Delta rainfall. But we are living in changing times, and the Sunflower has not risen to meet our expectations, and seems to be intent on thwarting any of our ambitions. The mid-south & the entire heart of America have been in prolonged drought. Every year for the past 4 years Mike & I have missed all rises, and had to paddle through a mysterious valley where the water had recently been high and had left us a slimy mantle of slippery smelly fudge coating everything in its grasp, including all good level places near the main channel for easy camping! Three years ago, in 2006, the water was so low that we were damaging our canoe running over cypress knees, chucks of concrete and the rusted & oftentimes hidden hulks of farm machinery. We had to portage over low-water dams, and drag the canoe over some shoals – both of which are unheard of on the usually deep Sunflower. On the Mississippi, low water means slow water. On the Sunflower low water means no current at all. Thus far we have paddled approximately 200 miles of the Sunflower. So basically we have paddled across a 200 mile-long meandering lake through the Delta – or so it would seem. Well -- not really -- the Sunflower is so full of surprises and weird places that you actually don’t notice the lack of current – not much anyway. Other reasons for February: no poison ivy and no mosquitoes. Snakes, of course are in hibernation, but we like snakes. We’d rather have the reptiles but not bad enough to do it during the mosquito months.<br /><br />Why the Sunflower?<br /><br />I have lived on the Sunflower for longer than I’ve lived anywhere in my life, near its headwaters in downtown Clarksdale. I’ve enjoyed its flowering plants and rich wildlife, smelled its bad smells, swam in it, slept by it, dreamed by it, read by it, worshipped by it, made love by it, been alternately inspired by it and disgusted by it. I make my living building canoes & paddling the Mississippi, and yet the Sunflower begs attention, I guess because it is my home river, and exploring it will help me better understand my home.<br /><br />If the Lower Mississippi is the gut of America, the Big Sunflower is the liver. It receives all the bad blood, the poisons, the toxins, the greed & the guilt of a region, and deposits them in her muddy floodplain. And believe me, you feel it as you paddle along. If you live in the Mississippi Delta, or have any affinity for it, then this is your river. Its also your liver, everything that gets sent down the street drains, the sewer pipes and the farm ditches ends up in the river, or in its adjacent floodplains, especially in the 60,000 acres of bottomland hardwoods of Delta National Forest. So its your river, and its your liver.<br /><br />The Sunflower is the Mississippi Delta. We define this land as the “Yazoo-Mississippi Delta,” and well yes, this might be technically correct, since the Big Sun is a tributary of the Yazoo -- but if you count the rain drops, the Sunflower is much more Delta than the Yazoo. The Yazoo should be considered Hill Country. If a rain drop falls here in the Delta most likely it enters the Big Sun somewhere in its 225 mile north-south journey. It receives all waters good & bad from Friars Point, Clarksdale, Cleveland, Indianola, Leland, Greenville, Rolling Fork & Mayersville. The only major Delta populations it doesn’t drain are Tunica, Greenwood & Belzoni. Its tributaries include the Hushpuckena, the Quiver River, Bogue Phaila, Silver River, and due to some radical canal work by the US Army Corps of Engineers, Deer Creek and Steele Bayou. The Little Sunflower, and some minor bayous and chutes (like American Chute) are considered its “distributaries,” waterways that carry its excesses during high water. It is sometimes connected overhead via Moon Lake and the Yazoo Pass to the Coldwater River and points North & East, but only during the highest of river levels. Of course, during severe flooding, the entire Delta goes under water and then you could really say “the river connects us all!”<br /><br />The Big Sun has gotten all kinds of bad press, mostly about the various workings of man & machines along its banks. We’re not putting on any magnolia-leaf-colored sunglasses in this expedition, to paint the pigsty pretty pinks & purples, but we do believe the Big Sun deserves better attention than it’s gotten, and we intend to share our experiences as truthfully as we can. Who knows the river better than those who paddle it? Only the catfish & the turtles.<br /><br />Friends of the Sunflower River<br /><br />As you know, this expedition is being conducted partly as a function of the Friends of the Sunflower organization in Clarksdale, to which mailing list we'll be reporting the day-by-day journey over the next couple of weeks. If you care to share this with anyone -- fine -- please pass it on, but while you do please encourage each person to join the “Friends” and help us in our mission. Also please respect our writing & photography, and “give credit where credit is due.” All of our writing, photos & sketches will end up as a book some day, and these are just installments along the way.<br /><br />St. Ann of Normandy<br /><br />Big Muddy Mike connects students in the St. Louis area to the river via the internet, through his teaching at St. Ann of Normandy, a North St. Louis Catholic School. Mike has been posting “Turtle’s Tale”, which is an account of the journey written in the character of “Toby Turtle.” You can share in the creative narration at http://stannnormandy.wikispaces.com/Turtle+Tales<br /><br />Does the Journey ever End?<br /><br />Of course, the end of one river is just the beginning of another, and so the Sunflower becomes a tributary of the Yazoo River at Steele Bayou. Not far downstream the Yazoo gets swallowed by the mother river, the Mighty Mississippi. There were plans to build the world’s largest freshwater pumps where the Sunflower joins the Yazoo, which was killed by an EPA veto last year, and as we paddle along we feel the effects of the “problem” the pumps were supposed to fix, that is “backwater” building up within the Mississippi Delta, and so we might have some thoughts about this and the water situation everywhere, the lack of good water, the disappearing wetlands, the extremely low water levels on all rivers in the middle of America – and of course we’ll share with you as we go along. We aren’t scientists or any sort. We know a lot of little things, small pieces of the whole, but are experts at none. Mike is an adventure teacher and as you know I am a canoe builder & river guide. But we do know the rivers we paddle better than anyone else, if nothing else for the simple fact that we are the only people that actually get out and paddle them. This was true when we paddled 2,500 miles down the Missouri River from Yellowstone to the Great Arch, its true on the Lower Mississippi, and the same sad situation is found on the Sunflower. Why do we know this is true? Because we don’t see anyone else!<br /><br />Poor neglected rivers – they have become the closet you stuff all your unwanted things in, where your guests can’t see them. But what if your guests did see them? What if your visitors to your town saw what you dumped behind your hunting camp? What if they saw how you allowed grey water and brown water to empty out of your trailer directly into the river? Maybe you’d start keeping it a little neater, wouldn’t you? And that’s what we are hoping with the Big Sunflower – we are hoping that these explorations will take some of the fear out of the mud and trashy banks, and add a little respect & recognition of the beauty & great expressions of life – and that more people will get out and paddle it. As more people paddle, maybe the people who dump things over the bank will be less inclined to do so -- and who knows, maybe they’ll even clean up some of the mess they made last year.<br /><br />And guess what? We’ve been exploring the Sunflower River for the last five years. Now it’s your turn. There’s no way any one person or any two people can care for any one river and do it any justice. We hope these writings will serve as some inspiration and you will be inspired to brave the mud and some ugly man-made messes and enjoy the truly unusual environment and the rich plant & animal life found thereof. You can use these narrations as a guide and go out and do it yourself!<br /><br />We recognize that canoeing is not for everybody, especially canoeing a sloppy muddy river in February. But even If you don’t like paddling, read on, we’ll get you out there in the wilds with our stories & photos, and you can share in the wonders of the river from the comfort of your home. But be forewarned: there will be unfinished sentences and metaphors that don’t entirely dovetail, and lastly, it’s going to be a sloppy read that won’t leave you entirely unsplattered with mud!<br /><br />Anyway, enough talk – let’s get on with the journey!<br /><br />All text & photos © 2009 John Ruskey, Quapaw Canoe Company<br />© 2009 Mike Clark, Big Muddy Adventures(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-60238885449935814172008-12-11T11:31:00.000-08:002008-12-11T11:35:01.783-08:00Get out and Paddle the SunflowerDEAR FRIENDS:<br /><br />Heavy Rainfall this week has brought the river up. The best time to get out & paddle the Sunflower!!!!<br /><br />Friday, Saturday and Sunday Dec 12-14th will be some beautiful paddling through downtown Clarksdale, and upstream & downstream as well. North wind Friday, SE wind Saturday & Sunday. Highs in the 40s. Do your own paddling & shuttling or we can provide canoes, kayaks and shuttle service. See below.<br /><br />What are the options?<br /><br />Clark Park to Sunflower Landing (3 miles)<br /><br />Leisurely 3 mile paddle into downtown Clarksdale through some of the woods & neighborhoods north of town. Owls & beavers. Paddle through the cypress, oaks & sycamores of the Duck Walk. You’ve never seen downtown until you’ve seen it from the river!<br /><br />Put-in at Clark Park<br />(Lee Drive & Friars Point Road)<br /><br />Take out at Sunflower Landing<br />(Public Parking just downstream of 2nd Street Bridge)<br /><br />Clover Hill to Sunflower Landing (10 miles)<br /><br />10 miles. 3-4 hours of paddling. Wild & remote-feeling. Great views of Coahoma County as it used to look. Paddle through woods & fields for miles and not see anyone. No people or buildings until you get close to Clarksdale. Lots of deer, ducks, owls, hawks, and migrating birds.<br /><br />Put in at bridge near Clover Hill<br />(turn off Friars Point Road at Kenoy’s and go East half mile on Farrell-Eagle’s Nest Road. Park on SE side of the 2nd Bridge. Put in below bridge.<br /><br />Take out at Sunflower Landing<br />(Public Parking just downstream of 2nd Street Bridge)<br /><br />Sunflower Landing to Hopson (6 miles)<br /><br />6 miles. 2-3 hours of paddling. Leave downtown Clarksdale and paddle under the Railroad Bridge behind Delta Wholesale Hardware, Red’s Juke Joint, the Riverside Hotel, 61 Highway – you will see why the Sunflower River has the blues! The river alternates between short narrow passages with clogged channels through submerged trees and long pools bordered by big trees and wide fields. The banks are thick with hawks, owls & deer.<br /><br />Put in Sunflower Landing<br />(Public Parking just downstream of 2nd Street Bridge)<br /><br />Take out at Hopson Bridge<br /><br />Rental & Shuttle Rates<br /><br />Canoe Rental: $35/day with paddles & life jackets for 2 people<br />Kayak Rental: $35/day with kayak paddle, life jacket, and kayak rescue gear<br />Shuttle Rates (per person with canoes & kayaks):<br />Sunflower Landing – Clark Park: $15<br />Sunflower Landing – Clover Hill: $25<br />Sunflower Landing – Hopson: $25<br /><br />20% off for Friends of the Sunflower River in current good standing!!!(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-23884047143399882072008-02-01T10:48:00.000-08:002008-02-01T10:49:43.576-08:002nd Annual General Membership MeetingPlease mark your calendars: Friday, February 15th, 6pm, Quapaw Canoe Company, 291 Sunflower Avenue, <strong>2nd Annual General Membership Meeting</strong> of the Friends of the Sunflower River. $25 (Min.) Membership fee for 2008 due on or before meeting. See below for more information. Our only expenses in the past 2 years have been $65 in postage & a $20 water quality testing kit from World Water Monitoring Day (good for 30 tests). <br /><br />Upcoming expenses: A high quality water-testing station so that we can begin a database for the Sunflower's water quality. Also, an online subscription to the Delta Democrat Times, which has been carrying a lot fo stories about the Yazoo Pumps (as well as other matters concerning the Big Sunflower in the Lower Delta). Also, maybe a subscription to the Deer Creek Pilot. Does anyone have an objection?<br /><br />Why join the friends? Because the river needs us! <br /><br />2008 will see us knee deep in the mud (hip deep in the water) cleaning up the river in downtown Clarksdale. Also, we have been coordinating a water quality workshop with MDEQ (Mississippi Dept. of Environmental Quality) sometime this Spring/Summer.<br /><br />The illustrious Mike Clark and I will be paddling downstream the last 2 weeks of Feb, continuing the annual Sunflower River Expedition. And you can paddle with us and help us document its dark muddy mysteries. Contact me for more info. If you can't paddle with us, your membership ensures that you receive the whole story & photos from the adventure along the way! (sent to you via this e-list).<br /><br />And lastly, your membership entitles you to a 25% discount in canoe rentals and shuttles from Quapaw Canoe Co. to get out & enjoy our mysterious muddy waterway yourself, this deal good only on the Sunflower River. We have a special set of canoes, paddles & lifejackets made for the slippery banks and many log jams encountered on the Sunflower River. Bring your own snake repellant! We will drop you off and pick you up. Shuttles provided by none other than Welsey Jefferson, who you probably know better as "the Mississippi Junebug" when he's playing bass & singing on stage at Red's, Ground Zero, and other jukes & festivals in the area.<br /><br />Make out your check to "Friends of the Sunflower River" and bring to the meeting on Feb 15th, or send to:<br /><br />John Ruskey<br />Friends of the Sunflower River<br />291 Sunflower Avenue<br />Clarksdale, MS 38614<br /><br />-------------------------cut here and mail -----------------------------<br /><br />Yes! I want to _____ join or ____ renew my membership with Friends of the Sunflower River to help care for the muddy river we call home. Please find enclosed my $25 check:<br /><br />Name: __________________________________________________________<br /><br />Address: ________________________________________________________<br /><br />Telephone_____________________Email_____________________________<br /><br /> ___add me to the mailing list for (infrequent) updates on the river, photos, stories, news items, the annual Sunflower River Expedition, etc.<br /> <br />___ Please send information about Friends of the Sunflower River to my friends/family/loved ones:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />___ I am particularly interested in the following activities in connection with Friends of the Sunflower River:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />___ Other:<br /><br />------------------------cut here and mail -----------------------------<br /><br />Who Are We?<br /><br />Friends of the Sunflower River is all about appreciating and caring for the lonely little river that winds its way through the center of the Mississippi Delta, from Friars Point to Clarksdale, from Mound Bayou & Merigold to Sunflower; from Indianola to Anguilla, from Holly Bluff to Vicksburg. <br /><br />This river has the blues! Besides the many blues & gospel musicians who were born & baptized along its banks, its mussel shell beds (which are reported to be the richest such biota in the world) seem to be in constant danger of overzealous engineering. The Sunflower River has been neglected and over-worked; so much that it was proclaimed America’s “Most Endangered River” in 2003. <br /><br />The good news is that its forests constitute the largest bottomland hardwood forests in the National Forest system (they also produce the highest carbon-sequestration of any forests in North America!), and its banks are home to every creature winged, webbed or otherwise, found native to the Mississippi Delta. It’s a beautiful place to get away, to reflect a moment on the rivers and woods of America, to walk along its banks, to paddle its waters, to enjoy its scenery. Most importantly, its home to all of us who live on or near its banks, and second home to many others who love it from a distance. Shouldn’t we be taking better care of our lonely muddy river?<br /><br />Physical Description: The Sunflower River is born in the bayous and lakes of Northern Coahoma County and meanders South some 250 miles through the Yazoo/Mississippi Delta paralleling the Mississippi River on the West and the Yazoo on the East, (with which it confluences with 10 miles above Vicksburg). A small but dynamic river, once forested, now mostly bordered by fields, the Sunflower is a rich habitat for all creatures native to the region, including black bear and panther. Its muddy current averages 2100 cfs (cubic feet per second) at Sunflower, 3461 at the mouth of Bogue Phalia, and approximately 4500 where it empties into the Yazoo River at Steele Bayou. Its drainage includes most or all of Coahoma, Bolivar, Sunflower, Washington, Sharkey & Issaquena Counties, some 3,689 square miles, inhabited by 169,150 people.<br /><br />Cultural/Historical Mélange: In its journey through the Delta, the Sunflower winds through the layers of mud and history that gave the world its first great blues singer (Charlie Patton, Dockery Plantation), the first mechanized cotton picker (Hopson Plantation), its oldest African-American founded community (Mound Bayou), rural Civil Rights era leaders (Fanny Lou Hamer, Sunflower County; Aaron Henry, Clarksdale), the Teddy Bear (Delta National Forest), King of the Chicago Blues (Muddy Waters, born in Rolling Fork, lived 25 years at Stovall) and the renowned ambassador of the blues (B.B. King, Indianola). The Rev. C.L. Franklin (Aretha’s Father) is just one of many who were baptized in her muddy waters. Bessie Smith died at the G.T. Thomas Hospital which sits on her banks in Clarksdale (now the Riverside Hotel). Today you can hear live blues along the river at juke joints Red’s and Sarah’s Kitchen. Legendary woodsman, Holt Collier (1846-1936), who cornered the Teddy Bear, reported its waters to run clear & clean, and Roosevelt started each day of the hunt with a cold-water swim. One of our long-term objectives is to make the waters safe once again for fishing and swimming.<br />Mission Statement: The Friends of the Sunflower River was established in 2006 to bring attention, understanding and care to the Big Sunflower River and its tributaries, The Little Sunflower, the Bogue Phalia, Mound Bayou, Indian Bayou, The Quiver River, Silver Creek, Deer Creek, Rolling Fork, Steele Bayou and the Hushpuckena River.<br /><br />Board of Directors: Five members: Executive Director, Assistant Director, Secretary, Treasurer, and Attorney; to meet quarterly to discuss ideas, activities and any items concerning the health of the Big Sunflower River.<br /><br />Honorary Directors: to meet annually with Board of Directors for participation in long-range planning and organizational philosophy.<br /><br />Annual Membership Meeting: to be set annually by Board of Directors.<br /><br />Goals: We, the members of the Sunflower River, are committed to a clean-flowing Sunflower River that provides sustainable habitat for the humans, animals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish that are found native to the Mississippi Delta. We dedicate ourselves to protect and restore its aquatic environment. We strive to supplement the current body of knowledge with observations, recordings and documentation of animal movement, water quality, soil quality, and other concerns of the natural science of the Mississippi Delta.<br /><br />Activities: involve understanding and enjoyment of the Sunflower River and its riparian environment: paddling, clean-up, water-quality monitoring, animal tracking, bird watching, crustacean counts, amphibian and insect observations.<br /><br />Membership: You can become a charter member of our fledgling organization to help us appreciate and take care of this lonely little river that winds its way through the center of the Mississippi Delta. $25/year basic membership.(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-4318329074668914722008-01-15T08:14:00.000-08:002008-01-15T08:17:18.062-08:00get off yer muddy stumps!All ye river Chumps<br />get off yer muddy stumps<br />and write these grumps<br />to Dump the Pumps!<br /><br />Dear Friends of the Sunflower River:<br /><br />See below for complete list of addresses to individuals involved in the decision-making process for final approval of the Yazoo Pumps. <br /><br />Please consider writing a letter to each of the following to halt the construction of the Yazoo Pumps. Our friends with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oppose this project. At the very least, this project needs a scientific assessment from an independent group. Compose your own letters, or if you want to save time, American Rivers makes it easy for you, go to their website and click on board, personalize one letter and they take care of all necessary addresses & delivery. <a href="http://www.americanrivers.org/">www.americanrivers.org</a>.<br /><br />The report comment period will be open to the public until January 22, 2008. The EPA has the power to veto this project under Clean Water Act section 404(c), and the president can direct the White House's Counsel on Environmental Quality to ensure that it’s never built.<br /><br />Mr. James Connaughton<br />Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality<br />722 Jackson Place, N.W.<br />Washington, D.C. 20503<a href="mailto:chairman@ceq.eop.gov">chairman@ceq.eop.gov</a><br /><br />Mr. Stephen Johnson<br />Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyAriel Rios Building1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20460<br /><a href="mailto:Yazoo_Project@epa.gov">Yazoo_Project@epa.gov</a><br />Mr. Dirk Kempthorne<br />Secretary, US Department of Interior1849 C Street, N.W.<br />Washington, D.C. 20240<a href="mailto:webteam@ios.doi.gov">webteam@ios.doi.gov</a><br /><br />Marvin Cannon<br />Vicksburg District of the US Army Corps of Engineers<br />4155 Clay Street<br />Vicksburg, MS 39183-3435<br /><a href="mailto:Yazoobackwater@usace.army.mil">Yazoobackwater@usace.army.mil</a><br /><br />Colonel Michael C. Wehr, District Engineer<br />Vicksburg District of the US Army Corps of Engineers<br />4155 Clay Street<br />Vicksburg, MS 39183-3435<br /><a href="mailto:Yazoobackwater@usace.army.mil">Yazoobackwater@usace.army.mil</a>(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-66880124382623180812008-01-15T07:56:00.000-08:002008-01-15T08:10:34.228-08:00pumps pressIssaquena County 12/11/07Wildlife Endangered by Yazoo Pumps Project?<br />by Jon Kalahar<a href="mailto:jkalahar@wlbt.net">jkalahar@wlbt.net</a><br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />Conservation officials are adamant about protecting the area, but the Army Corps of Engineers says that's their goal as well.<br />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.<br />"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.<br />Conservationists are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House to veto the project which would stop it in its tracks.<br />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.<br />January 6, 2008<br />December 12, 2007<br />Yazoo Pumps' impact debatedCorps of Engineers moving forward despite flood of oppositionChris Joynerchris.joyner@jackson.gannett.com<br />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.<br />"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."<br />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.<br />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.<br />A federally commissioned economic impact study at the time found building costs far outweighed the financial benefit the impoverished region might realize.<br />The Environmental Protection Agency warned the corps the plan was ripe for veto, sending the pump project back to the drawing board.<br />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.<br />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.<br />If it receives final federal approval, construction of the pumps project could begin as early as late 2008.<br />The corps took nearly a decade to produce the 2000 report. Parrish said, "We spent another seven years trying to get it right."<br />The new plan balances environmental concerns with flood protection, he said.<br />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.<br />"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."<br />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.<br />"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."<br />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.<br />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.<br />"I was a teenager when my uncle took me there for the first time. It's just fantastic," he said.<br />Today he takes his own son hunting at the Eagle Lake area north of Vicksburg.<br />"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."<br />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.<br />"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."<br />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.<br />"It's our job to ensure the wildlife environment is protected. These resources belong to all of us," he said.<br />With resistance to the project mounting, this version of the Yazoo Pumps project faces an uphill battle in Washington.<br />One of the project's chief defenders, Republican Sen. Trent Lott, is retiring at the end of the year.<br />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.<br />"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.<br />Youngblood said the groups opposing the Yazoo Pumps would never be satisfied, no matter what changes the corps made.<br />"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."<br />December 11, 2007<br />Delta pump project called ‘boondoggle’Chris Joynerchris.joyner@jackson.gannett.com<br />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.<br />"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<br />Conservation groups call on EPA to veto Miss. Delta pumps project<br />Associated Press<br />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<br />Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.<br />Delta Democrat Times, Greenville, on “Project still needs thought.”<br />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.<br />The truth, we suspect, is somewhere between these extremes.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />Latest Yazoo Pump project of benefit to allThe Clarion-Ledger<br />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.<br />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."<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />Jim Luckett<br />Dublin(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-26670932308102597412008-01-15T07:51:00.000-08:002008-01-15T07:52:57.948-08:00JUST THE FACTSJUST THE FACTS ON THE YAZOO PUMPS PROJECT<br />PREPARED BY T. LOGAN RUSSELL<br />DECEMBER 8, 2007<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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:<br /><br />Subarea Proposed Projects “Protected” Acres<br /><br />CARTER AREA +/- 30 miles of levees 102,000 ac.<br />SATARTIA AREA Projects completed 1976 29,000 ac.<br />SATARTIA EXT. AREA Floodgate 3,000 ac.<br />ROCKY BAYOU AREA +/-15 mi. levees w/floodgate 14,000 ac.<br />YAZOO AREA Pumping Plant 625,000 ac.<br /><br />5 Subareas 773,000 ac.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.)<br />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).<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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:<br /> <br /> CLEARED<br />ZONE ACRES NGVD FLOOD FREQ<br /><br /> 1 60,000 <90 ft 0-3 year<br /> 2 181,000 90/97 ft 4-20 year<br /> 3 159,000 >97 ft 21-100 year<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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”.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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).<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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:<br /><br />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.<br /><br />SIGNED,<br />YOUR NAME<br /><br />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.<br /><br />© Copyright, T. Logan Russell. 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. All Rights Reserved.(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-5404383955088090962007-11-10T08:01:00.000-08:002007-11-10T08:03:51.917-08:00First Frost of the Fall 2007First Frost of the Fall 2007<br /><br />Tuesday morning the North Mississippi Delta woke up to find the first frost of the fall which had settled overnight into the Mississippi Valley borne by north winds and a crystal clear night sky, stars visible all of the way to the horizon (even from downtown Clarksdale), the Moon a waning crescent falling below Venus, Old Man Owl (Great Horned Owl) calling out deep and woody resonance over the gently flowing waters from his perch on Old Woman Cypress, Emma Louise and I wandered down along the river and took the following photos later as the sun was rubbing its eyes and rising over the East bank of the Sunflower:<br /><br /><br />Can anyone identify the vegetation?<br /><br /><br /><br />Frosting edges making the chaos more sensible<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Clearish greenish water flowing slowly through town, partially fed by the new pumps sunk into the Mississippi River aquifer at the headwaters of the Sunflower, the start of a 200+ mile journey winding through the fields and forests of the Mississippi Delta, the Sunflower becoming the Big Sunflower, eventually meandering into the largest bottomland hardwood forest in the National Forest system, through some old channels of the Yazoo, and some canals dug into the delta, and then finally into its confluence with the Yazoo through the gates of Steel Bayou Control Structure.<br /><br />Will this muddy water of the Mississippi Delta be pumped back over the levee into the Mississippi River (during high water on the Mississippi)? This question now sits on the desks of the President and EPA Administrator, Stephen Johnson.(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-2267044635957422892007-06-25T09:10:00.000-07:002007-06-25T09:24:29.750-07:00Deer Creek Watershed Association, is working to clean up and revitalize Deer Creek to take it back to its former place of beautyRonnie Yarbrough's on the trail of something exciting<br /><br />MONDAY JUNE 25, 2007<br />Ross Reily, editor of the Delta Democrat Times.<br /><br />What would you say about the possibility of a walking/bike trail that spans 163 miles through the Mid-Delta?<br /><br />Well, while there's nobody ready to break ground for this project in the next 48 hours, there is one man who has a vision of bike trails, walking trails, fishing piers and boat ramps from one end of Deer Creek in Bolivar County to the other where it empties into the Little Sunflower River.<br /><br />Ronnie Yarbrough, along with the Deer Creek Watershed Association, is working to clean up and revitalize Deer Creek to take it back to its former place of beauty.<br /><br />Over the years, neglect has taken its toll, but Yarbrough sees more than just a litter-filled ditch. Yarbrough lives along Deer Creek near Arcola and first spent his own money to help clear and clean a portion within eyesight of his home. Since then, he and a group of dedicated folks have worked for a couple of years dealing with governmental agencies and cities and towns in the Delta to help clean, clear and beautify the Delta.<br /><br />"I see this as an economic development issue," Yarbrough said, noting that Deer Creek was once a great place for fishing.<br /><br />After the Mississippi Fish and Wildlife Department restocked Deer Creek, Yarbrough hopes the fishing get back to its pre-Katrina levels when people traveled from across the South just to throw a line in the historic water trail.<br /><br />"If we get everything clean and pristine, I can see a bait shop, a place for canoe rental and maybe one day an outfitter to help people traverse the creek," Yarbrough said. "We have to think along these lines. I don't see any big industries beating our doors down. So, why don't we think progressively and work with our own natural resources. What do we have to lose?"<br /><br />He has a point.<br /><br />Why not create a place that spans the entire Mid-Delta where people can come and enjoy a beautiful natural setting?<br /><br />According Yarbrough, the Mississippi Development Association is already on board. Also, if previous cleanup days are any indication, state Sen. Buck Clarke and state Rep. John Hines are on board, too. Clarke and Hines have been involved in local cleanup efforts.<br /><br />More than a month ago, 87 showed up in Metcalfe to help clean and clear Deer Creek. There were 95 in Leland and 125 in Arcola.<br /><br />What needs to happen next is for Greenville and Washington County to organize and help clean up the Deer Creek area that runs through the Mid-Delta Regional Airport.<br /><br />How nice would it be if there were a walking trail, a fishing pier and possibly a boat ramp to go along with the Greenville Municipal Golf Course as a great green area for Greenvillians and Washington County residents?<br /><br />What about money?<br /><br />To this point, money hasn't been a major problem, with federal agencies willing to work with the Deer Creek Watershed Association.<br /><br />The cleanup day in Metcalfe was funded with $40,000 from the Department of Environmental Quality, and Yarbrough says there may be as much as $2.3 million more out there from various organizations.<br /><br />At this point, what the Watershed Association needs is more people to volunteer and more communities and cities to jump on board with a clear vision of a manicured creek with bike trails, walking trails, fishing piers and boat ramps from one end of Deer Creek in Bolivar County to the other where it empties into the Little Sunflower River.<br /><br />That vision should also include smiling faces getting out and enjoying the Delta. That vision should include ways to market our beautiful natural resources, and we should envision people coming to the Delta just to enjoy how we made our dreams a reality.<br /><br />Now, who could be against that?(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-58119824589154668322007-04-23T05:17:00.000-07:002007-04-23T05:19:24.352-07:00Small Environmental Groups Can Make a Big Difference<br /><br />Local "stream teams" help clean up America's rivers and watersheds<br /><br />Environmental groups in the United States come in many sizes, from the 1.3 million-member Sierra Club to small neighborhood groups that clean trash from their local streams, monitor water quality and plant trees to prevent erosion. Even the smallest grassroots groups can have a big impact.<br /><br />Living Lands and Waters (LL&W) consists of fewer than a dozen people who live on a barge on the Mississippi River and direct river cleanup projects in their region. Members went to Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina to clear debris, and once a year the group travels to Washington to organize a volunteer cleanup of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers.<br /><br />Throughout the United States, citizens are joining "stream teams" - groups of volunteers that collect water samples and other data to monitor the health of their local watersheds (drainage areas). These nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provide information to government agencies and lawmakers and press for effective laws against polluters. They focus on local problems but are frequently part of national coalitions.<br /><br />At the neighborhood level, people who want to protect the small streams or creeks flowing through their back yards are forming tiny "subwatershed" groups, increasingly important tools for protecting the rivers that are fed by these streams, said Brian Van Wye of the Earth Conservation Corps (ECC) in Washington.<br /><br />"These are citizens in their communities who are the eyes and ears and voice of their creek," he told USINFO. "They get involved in volunteer cleanup activities, restoration activities, and they notice if something's going on that shouldn't be going on and try to urge government officials to do the right thing, to hold businesses and polluters accountable - all the good things citizens can do by being involved."<br /><br />Van Wye said the focus within the Washington environmental community is on fostering the growth of these subwatershed groups.<br /><br />"I see citizen involvement as essential to getting our rivers cleaned up," he said.<br />ECC, the group for which Van Wye works, provides environmental training opportunities for disadvantaged young people in the Washington metropolitan area. It works on restoring the Anacostia, which Van Wye says receives more than 70,000 tons of trash, sediment and pollutants from storm-water runoff every year.<br /><br />For the past month, ECC and several other local groups have been working with LL&W on its annual monthlong cleanup of the Potomac and Anacostia. They put out a call to federal agencies, NGOs and the general public for volunteers to don gloves and spend a few hours picking up tires, plastic bottles, Styrofoam cups, discarded toys and tons of other debris resulting from storm-water runoff.<br /><br />Capital River Relief, as the project is called, was started after LL&W founder Chad Pregracke flew to Washington in 2002 to receive a Jefferson Award for Public Service in recognition of his work to clean up the Mississippi River. He is based on a barge docked in East Moline, Illinois.<br />"I just could not believe all the garbage I saw on the shore of the Potomac," Pregracke told USINFO. "There was two feet [.61 meters] of garbage on the shore in some places."<br />As he has done in Illinois, Pregracke set up coalitions of local groups and agencies and obtained corporate sponsorship. In the past four years, "we've had a couple thousand people come out and volunteer with us" in Washington, he said. In 2006, Capital River Relief collected more than 2,600 bags of debris from the Potomac and Anacostia.<br /><br />Since Living Lands and Waters was launched about 10 years ago, 40,000 volunteers have helped collect 4 million tons of discarded appliances, tires and trash, Pregracke said.<br />On April 18, one of the volunteers was U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, who led a group of Interior Department employees participating in a volunteer program called Take Pride in America. Three boatloads of volunteers were taken to Oxon Cove on the Potomac River. As they approached the shore, they could see perhaps 2,000 plastic and glass bottles carpeting the ground and floating in the water.<br /><br />"It was incredible," said Kempthorne.<br /><br />"We need to understand that what we do in our neighborhoods affects everything else," he said, noting that litter thrown on the street kilometers away from a river ultimately can end up in the ocean. A project such as Capital River Relief "shows the tremendous power of volunteerism," Kempthorne said. "This is trash that won't end up in habitats down river."<br /><br />Kristen Ellis with LL&W said that after volunteering for the cleanup "a lot of people say 'I'm never littering again.' I've heard that several times. People are dumbfounded when they see the trash."<br /><br />Chris Fenderson, who also traveled from Illinois for the cleanup, said one of the group's main goals "is to get people out and show them the garbage and show them they can do something about it. We want to leave a lasting impression that you can do something."<br /><br />Additional information is available on the Web sites of <a href="http://www.capitalriverrelief.org/" target="_new">Capital River Relief</a>, <a href="http://www.livinglandsandwaters.org/" target="_new">Living Lands and Waters </a>and the <a href="http://ecc1.org/" target="_new">Earth Conservation Corps</a>.<br /><br />See also <a href="http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/0605/ijge/allan.htm" target="_new">"Tending the Rivers"</a> with a related article on Chad Pregracke and Living Lands and Waters in the the <a href="http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/0605/ijge/ijge0605.htm" target="_new">eJournal Protecting the Environment</a>.<br /><br />For more information, see <a href="http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/global_issues/environment/earth_day.html" target="_new">Earth Day</a>.<br /><br />Source: U.S. Department of State<br />judythpiazza@gmail.com(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-26085702320585628002007-04-16T08:11:00.000-07:002007-04-16T08:21:54.670-07:00Adopt-A-Stream MississippiAt NatureFEST April 14th I met Debra Veeder, coordinator of Adopt-A-Stream Mississippi. Welcome Debra to our Friends! Also, welcome John Henry Anderson, Public Relations Director of the Mississippi Soil & Water Conservation Commission.<br /><br />Debra Veeder offered to conduct a one-day water quality for Friends of the Sunflower. What a great opportunity! Good training, and we will receive a water quality test kit. So let's get together and pick a good day in June or July, August at the latest. I have a baby coming in June, I vote for mid-August. How does that sound to y'all?<br /><br />What is Adopt-A-Stream Mississippi?<br /><br />Adopt-A-Stream Mississippi is a cooperative effort between the Mississippi Wildlife Federation and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to involve citizens, like you, in stream stewardship and water quality monitoring. The common theme of the Adopt-A-Stream program is caring for and learning to conserve our water resources. Adopt-A-Stream promotes environmental stewardship through training workshops, outdoor field activities and by introducing participants to watershed action projects.<br /><br />Mississippi is fortunate to have abundant water resources. Streams, lakes and marshes provde a home for aquatic life and help maintain the sensitive balance of nature. Mississippi's waters are excellent resources for fishing, swimming, and canoeing. Rivers are a vital source for drinking water, agriculture and industry. The quality of that water affects all of these uses. Everyone needs to play his part in protecting these resources for the future.<br /><br />You can get involved with Adopt-A-Stream simply by contacting the <a href="mailto:dveeder@mswf.org">Mississippi Wildlife Federation</a> and expressing an interest in the program and becoming a Stream Steward!<br /><br />Adopt-A-Stream Goals:<br /><br />1. Educate citizens about the value of clean streams, rivers, and estuaries and how pollution from point and nonpoint sources affects water quality, wildlife, and fisheries and ultimately humans<br /><br />2. Collect baseline data on all streams and rivers in Mississippi for use as indicators of stream health<br /><br />3. Use data to promote cleanup of polluted streams and to maintain the health of clean streams for our children<br /><br /><a href="http://mswildlife.org/education/Adopt-A-Stream706.pdf">Click Here to Download Adopt-A-Stream Brochure</a>(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-44114205437463323742007-04-10T05:40:00.000-07:002007-04-10T05:41:33.438-07:00Mississippi River Valley Alluvial AquiferDry conditions increase pressure on Mississippi Delta aquifer<br />Associated Press<br /><br />JACKSON— The Mississippi River Valley Alluvial Aquifer contains trillions upon trillions of gallons of water and serves as a vital safety net for farmers and catfish producers in the Mississippi Delta.<br /><br />After 30 years of increasing agricultural pressure and a recent yearslong dry spell, though, researchers are beginning to see signs that the aquifer might not be bottomless after all.<br /><br />“The Delta area of the state used way too much groundwater to irrigate and dewatered that aquifer considerably,” state climatologist Charles Wax said. “And now here we are in 2007 coming into a very dry spring.”<br /><br />Increased use and long-term drought conditions dating back to 2000 have led to falling water levels in the aquifer. While it would take decades to tap the reserve because it naturally recharges itself in time, researchers are beginning to see a net loss.<br /><br />Wax and other researchers have secured grant money to get a better understanding of the loss-recharge cycle of the aquifer and to come up with ideas to slow down the steady pull from farms and ponds.<br /><br />Dean Pennington, executive director of the Yazoo Mississippi Delta Joint Water Management Council, said on average researchers are seeing a net loss of 200,000 acre-feet of water a year or about 65 billion gallons of water.<br /><br />Over the last year the aquifer dropped 2 feet in some places and it’s unclear how this spring’s dry conditions will affect its natural recharge, Pennington said. In a really bad year, the aquifer might lose 228 billion gallons. It might also gain that much in a year where rain and snow are plentiful.<br /><br />“It’s like I like to say about Mississippi — it’s feast or famine,” Wax said. “We’ve either got too much or too little. There are a lot of flood years in there as well as drought years.”<br />Rainfall this March in the Delta was the second lowest since 1950 and the Climate Prediction Center calls for the possibility of moderate to extreme drought through June.<br /><br />“This is a really bad time to be having a drought,” Wax said.<br /><br />The introduction of irrigation helped increase the number of crops grown in the Delta and the overall profitability of farming when it started in the mid-1970s. But water usage has continued to increase.<br /><br />Mississippi rice farmers alone would need about 195 billion gallons of water a year under total drought conditions, Pennington said. And now that corn is taking hold in the Delta for use in ethanol, groundwater usage likely will spike.<br /><br />Pennington will work with Wax this summer to compare aquifer water-level and climate data over the last three decades. They will then work on recommendations to help reduce the draw.<br /><br />The sand and gravel aquifer extends out on both sides of the Mississippi River and touches parts of Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, where the bulk of it is located.<br /><br />It sits 20 to 40 feet below the surface and extends 100 to 150 feet down.<br />The water is iron-heavy and tastes bad, so it isn’t suitable for drinking water, Pennington said. It’s perfect for rice, soybeans, corn and catfish.<br /><br />The aquifer is naturally recharged from the Mississippi River and runoff from surrounding hills in the watershed. Wax said it’s unlikely the entire aquifer could be drained, but it could be lowered enough that certain areas would no longer be able to pull water from wells.<br /><br />Farmers are looking at ways to lower their use of water. Ronnie Aguzzi, chairman of the water management district’s board of directors and a lifelong rice and soybean farmer from Cleveland, Miss., said he has leveled his fields so water doesn’t run off as easily.<br />There has been increased use of ditches to hold surface water for later use.<br /><br />“That’s how we pick up extra surface water, letting rain water go in these ditches,” Aguzzi said. “But it looks like we’re getting less of that, too.”<br /><br />Which means more of a reliance on the aquifer. Pennington’s group is hoping to help farmers cut use of the aquifer by 20 percent in the coming years.<br /><br />“And that’s a very attainable goal,” he said. “If we had to cut our water use by 70 percent, that’s more serious. We’d be sweating this.”(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-13544657016811591612007-04-02T07:12:00.000-07:002007-04-02T07:22:29.365-07:00The Sunflower River - a true story by D.L. WiebeThe Sunflower River<br /><br />We used to let the dogs run down on the banks of the Sunflower River amongst the decades old wreckage of The Sunflower River Yacht Club and the the rusted bars and cages that were all that was left of The Down Town Zoo. The dogs would swim in the sluggish brown and green<br />slime-coated river water, and chase pigeons underneath the Second Street Bridge and return to us smiling with blood on their muzzles and feathers in their teeth. During the dog days of Summer the river would often be reduced to little more than a fetid creek, and one time the dogs dug up what appeared to be a walrus tusk. Another time the receding water revealed the bleached skull of a rhino with the horn still intact. We took that home and wired it to our mail box.<br /><br />So much for the zoo; it was flooded out one stormy Spring night in 1952 when the river water rose so fast that by the time the lone zoo keeper had made it out of bed and down to the river the water was raging and too high for him to reach the pens and cages. The boat he attempted to launch was swept away into the lashing rain and lightning as soon as he slid it into the water. Above the howling wind he could hear a cacophony of ululating beasts raging against the rising water. He hocked his wad of Big Chief onto the muddy bank and made his way back to his truck. He drove to The Den and proceeded to get stinking drunk on corn liquor with the Harbor Master, who was also feeling kind of beat after witnessing the wreckage of what used to be the Yacht Club; broken masts and smashed hulls around the bend of the river from the marina where all the boats that had come loose from their moorings had piled into a huge oak tree that had fallen into the river during the initial onslaught of the storm. The next day the newspaper said it had been fourteen inches of rain in twelve hours. Many in town thought that was a conservative estimate after witnessing the river waters sweeping down Sunflower Avenue and the rapids that used to be Soldiers Field, Those news jockeys over there at that damn paper dont know their shit from their squat.<br /><br />Thirty-five years later a broken mast and the lichen coated ribs of the occasional boat hull could still be found miles down stream. We took the dogs down to the river daily, and then one sunny Fall day we had made our way a little further upstream than usual and heard the sound of<br />rushing water around the bend. We rounded the corner to investigate and from a huge rusty pipe imbedded in the river bank a gush of stinking brown water and paper and turds and oh the unholy stink of it all poured into the river causing a yellow foam to well up in the river and coat<br />the johnson grass and wild raspberry vines on the banks like a hepatitis lemon meringue pie.<br /><br />A few days later I was talking to Down Town City Water Works Manager, Marv Foley, and happened to mention witnessing this horrific event. He was nonplussed, Yaw. That shit comes from the Water Treatment Plant. Just dump all that crap into the river after they done treated it. I mean its all been treated, yknow. Aint nothin wrong with it cause it done got treated up there by them boys at the sewage treatment plant.<br /><br />Jesus, Marv, this stuff stunk to high heaven! There were actual turds and toilet paper coming out of the pipe.<br /><br />Yaw, it does smell some, Ill admit that, but it done been treated. Its all safe and all like that. Every last bit have been treated. All EPA approved, and that kind of shit, He peered at me through his reflecto sunglasses, What the hell were you doin up around there<br />anyhow?<br /><br />Running the dogs.<br /><br />Wall, Id stay clear of that spot from here on out if I were you.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />Wall, you said you didn like the smell, didnja?<br /><br />There have been some rumblings of late about resurrecting The Sunflower River Yacht Club. Its a tall order, but theres already a t-shirt designing contest underway, which is a sure sign of progress.<br /><br />About a year after wed abandoned The Sunflower River as a dog running eden some kids found our friend Larry's little sister, Kootchie, not far from that treated raw sewage drain pipe; dead, sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled. She was a well known crack whore, and there<br />wasnt much interest in the case at the Down Town Police Department. She had been dead for a week or two, and dogs or coyotes had messed up the crime scene pretty badly. The kids had tried to steal her rings, but her fingers came off, and they ran home crying. She was also covered with raw sewage. There wasnt much to go on.<br /><br />Chief Buck Buckie Blinks told the Down Town Delta Times, Were following every lead. And thats the last time anybody heard anything about that.<br /><br />copyright D.L.Wiebe 2007(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-68484897872524407442007-03-23T11:20:00.000-07:002008-12-08T22:23:48.351-08:00Huge Musselshell from Sunflower, Mississippi<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4SMBDdJwJq0/RgQbpJYvS5I/AAAAAAAAAAw/Jcpwl6La_Ac/s1600-h/~MAP0000.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5045187876270066578" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4SMBDdJwJq0/RgQbpJYvS5I/AAAAAAAAAAw/Jcpwl6La_Ac/s320/~MAP0000.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />As Friends of the Sunflower River is being formed and which Allen and I have sent our $25.00 membership, I thought of the shells that I had saved from fishing.<br /><br />Allen and I would fish on the back of the place each afternoon that weather would permit. Many afternoons I would think I had a "whale" of a catfish on my line only to find a huge Mussel. They are so beautiful, and I understand why areas that have them have been protected as they make beautiful buttons.<br /><br />Sadly, we were fishing one day and noticed fish beginning to float on top of the river. Some appeared to be gasping for air. I reached out, picked up one, and realized something terrible had happened. Yes, apparently somewhere up the stream someone or something had dumped poison or a chemical in the River. Needless to say, that was the end of the fishing for many months. Then, when we did return, we did not find any mussels attaching to the line. Luckily, I kept some of the shells. Many small shells would be found on the bank as something apparently had made lunch on them.<br /><br />We had lucked upon a Blue Heron one day near the mussel spot. It was so tall that I slowly walked up to it for comparison and looked the Heron dead in the eye. My can of fishing shrimp was an offering for him, but he looked, spread his wings and flew away. The bird was fabulous and my experience was most exhilarating. I never saw the bird again.<br /><br />(Sent from Sunflower, Mississippi, by charter member Sonia Fox)(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-13626738562092374532007-02-22T07:24:00.000-08:002008-12-08T22:23:48.439-08:00A quick way to get to know the river in Clarksdale:<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4SMBDdJwJq0/Rd2373tE4yI/AAAAAAAAAAk/spvh2xWab1I/s1600-h/soldier%27s+field+park+(43).jpg"><span style="font-family:arial;"><em><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5034382197663261474" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4SMBDdJwJq0/Rd2373tE4yI/AAAAAAAAAAk/spvh2xWab1I/s320/soldier%27s+field+park+(43).jpg" border="0" /></em></span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Walk through downtown Clarksdale along the Riverwalk (which is a posted "Bird Sanctuary") located opposite downtown, on Clarksdale's "West bank."</em></span><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"><em></em></span> </div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>From the South entrance on Riverside (at the foot of Cherry Street), the Riverwalk takes you under the two bridges, 1st Street, then 2nd Street, past a small copse of Cypress, several Syacamores and giant Cottonwoods, and into Soldier's Field, around which the Sunflower flows. Walk the perimeter of the field (where Malcolm Mabry planted Oaks a decade ago). There is a gazebo in the center, a good place for a picnic. Conner Burnham conducts his yoga classes here during the warmer months. You'll see several paths leading from the field towards the river. Follow one and you'll drop down onto the river's bank. Here you'll enter another world: a striking hallway of medium Bald Cypress growing like the columns of a Greek temple. You'll notice the confluence with "Lyons Bayou" on the opposite bank, and your view upstream might look something like this photo, taken from Cypress knee level:</em></span></div>(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-44524205606707519582007-02-21T13:01:00.000-08:002008-12-08T22:23:48.641-08:00<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4SMBDdJwJq0/Rdy2DntE4xI/AAAAAAAAAAY/jDTS1jUe1MA/s1600-h/downtown+(6).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5034098656807281426" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4SMBDdJwJq0/Rdy2DntE4xI/AAAAAAAAAAY/jDTS1jUe1MA/s200/downtown+(6).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>The view this morning </em></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>towards the second street bridge</em></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>a fine mist settling in layers </em></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>the muddy banks of the river</em></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>first light just entering the sky </em></span></div><div><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>blackbirds beginning to fly</em></span></div>(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-17177832370558309522007-02-20T14:07:00.000-08:002008-12-08T22:23:48.763-08:00a bend of the river<div align="center"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4SMBDdJwJq0/Rdtz4HtE4wI/AAAAAAAAAAM/QnshTpAbQ90/s1600-h/2007+expedition+030.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5033744416494641922" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_4SMBDdJwJq0/Rdtz4HtE4wI/AAAAAAAAAAM/QnshTpAbQ90/s320/2007+expedition+030.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"><em>a bend of the river</em></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"><em>near Lindsey Lake Nat'l Wildlife Refuge</em></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;"><em>Sunday, February 18, 2007 </em></span></div>(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-24705381001834466112007-02-20T13:28:00.000-08:002007-02-20T13:29:52.884-08:00This river has the blues!Friends of the Sunflower River is all about appreciating and caring for the lonely little river that winds its way through the center of the Mississippi Delta, from Friars Point to Clarksdale, from Mound Bayou & Merigold to Sunflower; from Indianola to Anguilla, from Holly Bluff to Vicksburg. <br /><br />This river has the blues! Besides the many blues & gospel musicians who were born & baptized along its banks, its mussel shell beds (which are reported to be the richest such biota in the world) seem to be in constant danger of overzealous engineering. The Sunflower River has been neglected and over-worked; so much that it was proclaimed America’s “Most Endangered River” in 2003. <br /><br />The good news is that its forests constitute the largest bottomland hardwood forests in the National Forest system (they also produce the highest carbon-sequestration of any forests in North America!), and its banks are home to every creature winged, webbed or otherwise, found native to the Mississippi Delta. It’s a beautiful place to get away, to reflect a moment on the rivers and woods of America, to walk along its banks, to paddle its waters, to enjoy its scenery. Most importantly, its home to all of us who live on or near its banks, and second home to many others who love it from a distance. Shouldn’t we be taking better care of our lonely muddy river?<br /><br />Physical Description: The Sunflower River is born in the bayous and lakes of Northern Coahoma County and meanders South some 250 miles through the Yazoo/Mississippi Delta paralleling the Mississippi River on the West and the Yazoo on the East, (with which it confluences with 10 miles above Vicksburg). A small but dynamic river, once forested, now mostly bordered by fields, the Sunflower is a rich habitat for all creatures native to the region, including black bear and panther. Its muddy current averages 2100 cfs (cubic feet per second) at Sunflower, 3461 at the mouth of Bogue Phalia, and approximately 4500 where it empties into the Yazoo River at Steele Bayou. Its drainage includes most or all of Coahoma, Bolivar, Sunflower, Washington, Sharkey & Issaquena Counties, some 3,689 square miles, inhabited by 169,150 people.<br /><br />Cultural/Historical Mélange: In its journey through the Delta, the Sunflower winds through the layers of mud and history that gave the world its first great blues singer (Charlie Patton, Dockery Plantation), the first mechanized cotton picker (Hopson Plantation), its oldest African-American founded community (Mound Bayou), rural Civil Rights era leaders (Fanny Lou Hamer, Sunflower County; Aaron Henry, Clarksdale), the Teddy Bear (Delta National Forest), King of the Chicago Blues (Muddy Waters, born in Rolling Fork, lived 25 years at Stovall) and the renowned ambassador of the blues (B.B. King, Indianola). The Rev. C.L. Franklin (Aretha’s Father) is just one of many who were baptized in her muddy waters. Legendary woodsman, Holt Collier (1846-1936), who cornered the Teddy Bear, reported its waters to run clear & clean, and Roosevelt started each day of the hunt with a cold-water swim. One of our long-term objectives is to make the waters safe once again for fishing and swimming.(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3744026706546910546.post-69742108646656691722007-02-15T21:56:00.000-08:002007-02-21T19:07:12.671-08:00Birth of an Organization<span style="font-family:arial;">Friends of the Sunflower River became an official organization tonight with a meeting in Clarksdale along the banks of the river at Quapaw Canoe Company. We decided we are mostly concerned with education and appreciation, and drew up a long list of objectives, one of which was to create an informational website. And now -- voila! Mike Clark of Big Muddy Adventures constructed this blog site for us using the blogspot template. Do you like this? Any additions? Comments? If you are a web designer, and you have better ideas, give us a holler! We are worker bees here. Other objectives and "action" items will appear periodically, perhaps as a sidebar on this blog, maybe in some future posts. Become a friend and help us out! Its easy: send your $25 annual membership fee to Friends of the Sunflower River, 291 Sunflower Avenue, Clarksdale, MS, 38614, and get ready to help us take care of the river you love!</span>(Sunflower River)http://www.blogger.com/profile/12845221498971134090noreply@blogger.com0