What has perhaps been the longest-lasting, unanswered question in the history of the Mississippi River Levee, to pump or not to pump, may have again been answered.
Peter Nimrod, lead engineer for the Mississippi Levee Board, recently told the gathered members of the Greenville Rotary Club the pumps were going to be built at the Steele Bayou structure in the south end of the Delta to help relieve the flood-prone area.
The pumps have been in the crosshairs of political approval and cancellation by both parties in recent years but were finally given the go-ahead by the Army Corps of Engineers in the waning days of the Biden administration on Jan. 16.
But there’s a small catch. So far, only $32 million has been appropriated for the project, which, in some estimates, would cost upwards of $400 million.
Nimrod doesn’t think the funding will be a problem as he sees the close relationship Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith shares with President Donald Trump as key to the future of the project.
The pumps saw opposition from several environmental groups and even some locally based outdoor associations. While the local opposition has vanished, Nimrod said the Army Corps of Engineers current plan for the pumps satisfies what were some of the environmental arguments against the pumps.
Those arguments seem spurious to me. The entire Delta is only habitable because man-made structures protect the area from flooding.
There are also other pumps throughout the Delta doing exactly what this pump is intended to do. This pump was simply a matter of bad timing, as it was the last on the list to be completed, and a long, flood-free period.
Since the floods of 2011 and 2019, the pumps have been pushed to the forefront and are an obvious necessity.
Man-made structures made the Delta habitable, but they also created the opportunity for these hugely destructive floods.
The $32 million for the project will now be used to purchase the 6,215 mitigation acre tracts throughout the Delta and begin planning for the project. Those acres are located between Onward on the North and Eagle Lake on the South.
The plan, for now, is to build a 25,000 CFS pump that starts operation when the water level at Steele Bayou reaches 90 feet. The 90-foot level is for the farming season. The pumps would also operate if floods reached 93 feet during the non-farming season.
At 90 feet, 156,000 acres of land in the backwater would still flood compared to the 510,000 acres that flooded in 2019 without the pumps. The 2019 flood destroyed 686 houses, three highways and 175,000 acres of farmland.
I remember driving back from Vicksburg at night during the flood. Though the area is sparsely populated, lights on electrical poles near houses dot the landscape. There were none when the water was at its highest. The South Delta was full of water and empty of people.
During Nimrod’s speech to Rotary, a mischievous thought entered my mind.
I wondered to myself quietly and later on the ride back to the office out loud who would be there to operate the pumps when they reached the proscribed level.
What if, through an act of civil disobedience, I drove down to the pump in the middle of dark night during a backwater flood and turned the thing on myself when the water reached, say, 80 feet?
Nimrod assured me, “I’ll bet they will have a full-time staff at that pumping plant and will operate it directly from the site. But I’m sure they will be able to remotely operate it out of the Vicksburg Headquarters as well in case of an emergency.”
I didn’t let him in on my nefarious plan when I asked the question, and heck, it may be worth a little “good trouble” if it saves land from flooding.
Now that the pump is in the planning stages, I wonder if it is time to remove the #buldthempumps sticker from my truck, or should I wait until the inevitable lawsuits and long wait times are over? Stickers for causes, like political campaign signs, should be removed at the cessation of the cause.
I’ll keep the sticker for now and hope my truck isn’t worn out by the time the sticker isn’t necessary anymore.
Jon Alverson is proud to be the publisher and editor of the Delta Democrat-Times. Write to him at jalverson@ddtonline.com or call him at 662-335-1155.
