On Tuesday, August 11, 2009, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court located in Greenville, MS on behalf of the Board of Mississippi Levee Commissioners. The lawsuit deals with the delays and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) veto of the Yazoo pump part of the Yazoo Backwater Project.Congress authorized the Yazoo Backwater Project in 1941 to deal with flood control in Mississippi. The project proposes to build a pump station to drain wetlands, farmland, and forests located north of Vicksburg, MS when the Mississippi River is running high. Despite authorizing the project, Congress did not fully fund it, and thus the pump part of the project has never been completed.
In 2008, the EPA vetoed the pump part of the project because, the agency argues, that part of the project would harm wetlands, water quality, and the natural habitat threatened species depend on for survival. The Board of Levee Commissioners argues they are simply trying to protect citizens living in the lower Mississippi Delta from flooding. The lawsuit challenges the EPA’s authority to stop the project since the project was authorized before the 1977 Clean Water Act gave the EPA veto authority over water projects. The EPA argues that, regardless of when the project was authorized, it still doesn’t meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act and therefore cannot proceed.
Holbrook Mohr’s article for the Associated Press, and published by the Clarion Ledger, quotes Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Damien M. Schiff as stating in the 13 page lawsuit that, ‘"[d]espite the many social and environmental benefits that the project will produce, EPA vetoed the project, contending that the project will be too environmentally harmful . . . That is flat wrong: The project will produce significant environmental benefits, as well as flood protection."
The pumps are the last part of the project needed to control flooding, contends Schiff. Schiff also maintains that the work done by the Army Corps of Engineers to control flooding north of the proposed pump has actually made the flooding worse in the Yazoo River Basin. According to the AP story, “About 900,000 acres and 1,000 residential structures were affected, said attorney Damien M. Schiff.” For now, the arguments of the stakeholders will have to play out in federal court.
To read the AP story on the ClarionLedger’s website click here.
Posted: 08/12/09
