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Details shared with community about new Yazoo Backwater pump plan
Project involves installing pumps to prevent flooding
Madeleine Nolan, Reporter
VICKSBURG, Miss. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency held the last of three community engagement sessions Friday in Vicksburg.
Details of the new Yazoo Backwater Area Water Management Plan were shared during the meeting.
“We put together a plan amongst the resource agencies, along with the Army Corps, that we think protects the interests that have been long at issue, that are the fish and wildlife resources and the wetlands resources,” said Mike Connor, the assistant secretary for the Army of Civil Works.
For 80 years, residents in the South Delta region, including Sharkey, Issaquena, Yazoo, Washington and Humphries counties, have been dealing with flooding that has cost land and the lives of many people.
“I talked to an older gentleman who was in his late 70s, who said, ‘When I was in high school, I waded through those same floodwaters,” said U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.
Hyde-Smith and U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker attended the meeting to tout the new plan after the old plan was rescinded by the Biden administration in 2021.
“We’ve been at this a long time, so we’re going to have to prove to them (residents) that we can get this across the finish line so we can actually install the pumps, and their lives will get better,” Hyde-Smith said.
“This will give job creators, farmers, families the certainty that the flooding will end at a certain elevation, and they can be confident that they can build their lives above those elevations,” Wicker said.
As presented, the preferred approach to flood relief will include the installation and operation of pumping stations. The pumping area will be designed to operate at a greater capacity compared to previous proposals. This is in order to reduce the risk for almost all residences.
“To manage, basically, water to the 90 feet flood level during the crop season and to allow the flood level to go to the 93 elevation, we call the 5-year plan during the non-crop season,” Connor said.
For homes that remain at risk of flooding, the federal government would provide voluntary buyouts or help to elevate homes and build ring levees.
“We are going to move forward. We’re going to get the appropriations needed to fund these projects and prove to them that we didn’t desert them — but it was a long time coming,” Hyde-Smith said.
The EPA and the Corps of Engineers hope to present the preferred approach at the end of June and begin implementation in 2024. Since the project is different, compared to previous projects, officials said they still have to conduct some cost estimations.