[Editorial]  Tell Whole Story on Levees and Lakes

Courtesy Army Corps of Engineers

Front from left: Pearl Mayor Brad Rogers and Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. listened last September to the Corps’ announcement that it will not recommend a lake plan for flood control along the Pearl River.

January 6, 2010

Now that the Rankin-Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District has officially agreed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' levees-only plan for flood control, expect the Two Lakes war machine to kick in full throttle to disparage levees.

Downtown Jackson Partners President Ben Allen is out front, pointing out that the levee plan leaves much to be desired, and he's right. Levees will indeed put an expensive section of Jackson property between the levees and into an aggravated flood zone, reducing it to a virtual no-man's land for development. The levees will cost $206 million, forcing local property owners to pony up $73 million in matching funds. Allen and developer Leland Speed also argue that the levee plan does not include the cost of installing pumps along two city creeks, which could cause problems in the rare event that a serious rise in river water corresponds with local downpours, forcing the creeks to back up over their beds. (The Corps deems this unhappy possibility very unlikely, however.)

The levee plan is the same one proposed in the 1990s, and it is in need of updating to make it more palatable to local property owners if they are to approve its financing in a referendum vote. But that won'’t happen if advocates for an opposing lake plan manage to derail levee construction altogether.

The Two Lakes plan, which involves dredging and damming the Pearl River, comes with its own costs. Advocates claim they can build it for about $400 million, but the Corps is blunt that the construction will never survive the planning stage if it doesn't include almost $1 billion worth of additions necessary to get it past the federal environmental review process. The Corps says the Lakes plan requires landfill removal, soil stabilizing and a host of additions—meaning any plan without this mitigation will hit an immediate litigation wall, not to mention lose the $133 million federal contribution. Allen has a point that levees are expensive, but their toll on local taxes will be nothing compared to the Lakes plan after environmentalists and the feds finish with it.

There's also the matter of the money. The federal government's contribution must funnel through the Corps, and the Corps has no intention of contributing to a lake project for very serious reasons. That fact cannot be ignored.

The best action now is to move forward with the levee plan and make improvements to it as the Corps and local authorities piece it together—that is, do what should have happened years ago. It's not too late to tweak the plan and learn from other successful levee efforts, and once the money's gone, it could be gone for good, and the city will be facing the prospect of another 1979 flood after millions of dollars of investment in rejected lake plans that disregarded federal regulations.

Some Two Lakes supporters say the money's still there, even if the Corps opts out, but are you willing to risk it? A majority of the Levee Board wasn't.

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