Also see: Editorial: Stop the Lakes v. Levees Drama
Some members of the Rankin-Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District Levee Board may have been surprised to learn Wednesday that they voted earlier this year for the U.S. Corps of Engineers to study a flood-control plan "with or without levees."
Late last year, the Corps sought to end decades of wrangling over the viability of a Two Lakes plan and other flood-control options by opting to move ahead with a levee expansion to provide urgently needed flood protection along the Pearl River.
The Levee Board voted this summer to ask the U.S. Corps of Engineers to study a modest one-lake plan that would provide some economic-development while leaving wetland areas north of Lakeland Drive untouched, including the scenic Mayes Lake campgrounds. The board hopes this plan could skirt some environmental concerns about earlier, more ambitious plans rejected by the Corps due to cost, environmental and other roadblocks.
The Jackson Free Press reported Oct. 6 that there was confusion over whether or not the new plan might also include levees, with the Northside Sun reporting erroneously that levees were definitely off the table, and quoting Levee Board member Leland Speed's assurances that a second lake could be added above Lakeland later on, effectively creating a Two Lakes development anyway at some point.
Levee Board member Socrates Garrett, also a Two Lakes supporter, inquired at the last meeting whether the more recent lake plan endorsed by the Levee Board features an expanded levee system or requires no levee expansion at all. Two Lakes developer John McGowan demanded that the Levee Board investigate what it had actually voted for, even as other board members seemed clear that the Corps would likely study the plan with and without levees, no matter how they had asked the question.
In response to Garrett's request, board attorneys today brought minutes listing the board's May 20 resolution that requested the Corps work with the Levee Board to include in its flood control plan "economic and environmental considerations" for a potential lake, which the minutes plainly indicated could be either "with or without levees."
Garrett responded that it was important for the board to clarify the levee aspect of their resolution, however: "[M]y understanding was that we did not require levees at all," Garrett said. "That is a critical issue that this board must address at some point in time so we will know specifically what we are asking for in our lower lake plan." Garrett called the current lake plan "nebulous and confusing," and added that "the board should give some direction as to what it would like to see (from the Corps), so it can negotiate down" from the preferred non-levee alternative.
Advocates for a future expansion of the modest lake plan into a larger lake oppose extending levees, which they say will make a lake expansion above Lakeland impossible.
Board member Harvey Johnson Jr. asked if the Levee Board's decision was purposefully vague: "Isn't that what the feasibility study is for, to decide whether to allow levees?"
Joe Waggoner, whose company does engineering for the Levee Board, said he also preferred a levee-free lake—if the federal government determines that it is feasible. "… nder the single-lake concept we recommend we start with the lake only, without the levees, as the benchmark around which to evaluate the level of protection, and to only any additional purchase necessary if the single lake proves not to work," Waggoner said.
Jackson oilman John McGowan, who still advocates for his Two Lakes plan, said the difference between his plan and Waggoner's is that Waggoner made the mistake of trying to count on federal money to fund the lake. Instead, he suggested that the Levee Board walk away from the Corps' input and funding match. "We believe that we should develop this one lake plan as a standalone flood-control plan with our own resources here and finalize it in a form that is defensible," McGowan told the Levee Board. "What Joe wants to do is go into a continuation of this feasibility study and work with the Corps on developing a plan. But the Corps has already said they're not going to do it, that mandates won't let them do it." (The Corps agreed in September to study whether a one-lake impoundment could be included in the final flood-protection plan.)
McGowan instead suggested the Levee Board look for local funding or through U.S. legislators—presumably an earmark.
The Levee Board did not today mention a report issued Oct. 12, 2010, by the Joint Legislative Committee on Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review that criticized Levee Board members for not doing more to get better flood protection in place in the years since the devastating flood of 1979. "Thirty-one years after the 1979 food," PEER wrote, "governmental entities have not yet implemented a comprehensive flood control plan for the Jackson metropolitan area."
The PEER report specifically calls out the Two Lakes plan for its extensive environmental impact, its potential for litigation, a lack of eminent domain authority to take the land required from landowners, being financially unfeasibility (with a likely pricetag of $1.2 billion) and for having "no apparent definable plan to finance the construction of the "Two Lakes Plan." In addition, PEER stated, "[c]onstruction of a flood control project to protect human life and property is a governmental function and not that of an undefined private entity."
PEER indicated that the Levee Board needed to move "expeditiously" toward a flood-control plan, warning that pushing for a lake may delay protection even longer. PEER told the report it expects a progress report by Dec. 31, 2010.
Read more of the JFP's award-winning Two Lakes-Pearl River coverage in our Pearl River archive.
Previous Commentsshow
What's this?More like this story
Support our reporting -- Follow the MFP.
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.