RIVER.....VICKSBURG.....FLOOD ALERT

[crow]

Hey, SDelta, is Blanton Wildlife that nice new lodge build just to the side of a couple of old catfish ponds.

[vicksburg]

FLD OBSERVED FORECAST 6AM CREST
LOCATION STG STG DAY TIME WED THU FRI STG DAY TIME

LOWER MISSISSIPPI RIVER
ARKANSAS CITY 37 32.4 TUE 07 AM 32.9 33.5 34.1 39.0 MAY 28
GREENVILLE 48 44.2 TUE 07 AM 44.7 45.2 45.8 50.0 MAY 29
VICKSBURG 43 38.2 TUE 07 AM 38.7 39.1 39.6 45.0 MAY 31
NATCHEZ 48 44.7 TUE 07 AM 45.1 45.6 46.0 51.0 JUNE 2

[Sdelta]

crow,
Blanton Wildlife is on the north side of Blanton Rd. w/ a Green tin roof. They normally lease out there dove fields to corp. events(Miss. home builders, ect.)

SDelta

[Duck Nawteek]

Hey Sdelta Where is your place there in Blanton. Is it on Blanton Road? About how many acres do you have?

[Sdelta]

D.N.,
WE sometimes park our trucks on Blanton Rd.(just past the blanton widlife entr.) and ride our wheelers south. We have 300 acres with 3 holes. We lease the trailor at the end of I believe its name is priddy rd.

SDelta

[walt333ms]

As of yesterday the corp is estimating about 45 feet at vicksburg...june 2....

That gives you just over 91.2 feet at Vicksburg,...+1.5 feet for the Steel Bayou
that makes it 92.5...., +-94...Little sunflower and Sunflower....

Inside with no rain from vicksburg to memphis, to tupelo....lower delta is going under....

Mahanna's big field...85--under 6 feet...

where are u pumps when we need them...

no wonder we cant raise quail, turkeys, deer, in the lower delta...

Time to move some stuff...

uncle walt

[Sdelta]

Unc

My place in Blanton will look like one big ass lake in June.

All those sunflower fields that Blanton Wildlife has will be all for not. I guess there will be a need for wheat in august for those 10 ac. "food plots".

SDelta

[Hammer]

Say the Corps did build the Pumps, where would the water out of the South Delta go?

Into a flood stage Mississippi River so folks downstream would flood worse including my land off Eagle Lake Road between the Yazoo River and the Backwater Levee (Big Ditch Levee)...

Not to mention that the water coming out of the Pumps would be full of silt and sand and would turn my land into a sandbar...

The South Delta was a swamp until 30 years ago...Now its a swamp where a few folks are fighting reality trying to farm it...As a taxpayer, hunter and landowner, I would be better off if the government dropped the Pumps and put the whole area into WRP...Same goes for most folks on this board...

As bad off as the folks in Sharkey and Issaquena County are now (highest unemployment in MS), they wouldnt be any worse off if the whole area went into WRP and at least in 40-50 years there would be logging, sawmill and other forestry jobs...

Incidentally, the deer, turkeys, etc were in the South Delta a long time before the white man showed up and they did fine without our help...

One other thing- a lot of Pumps supporters talk about how the government promised them the Pumps...That is not true...The original plan (1941)was for three small pumps- one at Big Sun/Yazoo River, one at Deer Creek/Yazoo River and one at Steele Bayou/Yazoo River...In 1959 the Corps changed this plan by building the Big Ditch (Sunflower River/Steele Bayou Connecting Channel) which is the ditch that runs under Hwy 61 just north of the Yazoo River...In justifying the construction of the Big Ditch, the Corps said the ditch would eliminate the need for building the Pumps...Bottomline: The government's promise has been delivered...

So why is there so much flooding in the South Delta today? Two reasons: 1- You are dealing with very lowlying land, one of the largest rivers in the world and one of its largest tributaries...2- Cause the South Delta landowners, irrigation districts, etc screwed up part of the government's plan... The Corps plan hinged on an upper sump (north of DNF near Rolling Fork/Anguilla area) and a lower sump (Mahannah area)- low lying areas where floodwaters would be stored...It is those landowners whom cleared the sump land at their own risk and want the rest of us to pay for it...That is the rest of the story-

HAMMER

PS Incidentally, take a look at the Corps own reports...Its not like they switch the Pumps on and voila your land doesnt flood...The reality is that much of the land in the project area would still flood, just not as long or as deep...Sunflower fields would still be ruined as would any emerged corn and cotton...Beans might tolerate some flooding, might not...But the fact is you can plant beans into June now and milo even later than that so flooding doesnt cause much crop loss unless you are trying to grow cotton or corn on beanland...Even then, crop insurance is very, very cheap.

[Wingman]

Hammer, you just said a mouthful, son. I couldn't have said it any better.

Wingman
ISAIAH 40:31

[walt333ms]

Hammer good post...lots of good info....
but will try go to interject a few more points....

(background..)
In the late 30's some men from magee, mendenhall, jackson, mt.olive, purchased about 3000 acres of land in this lower steel bayou backwater area and started a hunting club....my first year was '54..
and by the grace of god, luck, hard work and some sacrafice by some families the camp is still in existance....

HEIGHTS ARE ABOVE SEA LEVEL..

VICKSBURG..46.2 +45.5 = 91.7.ABOVE SEA LEVEL
projected crest june 1..with no more rain

height of the surrounding land at both Sunflower and Steel bayou gates

SUNFLOWER....87....


STEEL BAYOU...82.5
remember these are connected by a "big ditch"


SINCE THE DECEMBER 4-5-6 RAINS OF 18 INCHES IN THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA THE SUNFLOWER GATES HAVE BEEN MOSTLY CLOSED...ALL WATER HAS BEEN DIVERTED TO THE LOWER STEEL BAYOU BACKWATER..
How many quail, trukey, deer..foxes..bobcats ect raise their young underwater....


The reason the "big ditch" diverson canal was built was in order to divert the huge amounts of water from the little sunflower and the sunflower...(go get a map and see how far north these two rivers go..)
into the lower steel bayou back water....
(the corps calls this stacking water)

Flash ....now you can understand what has been going on every spring since 1961...
and why the pumps were in the original plan.


The Sunflower and little sunflower is about 4.5-feet higher and 20 times the volume than steel bayou ...
256,00 acres now have water diverted from the north delta on it.
...and as you know this part of the lower delta is the largest remaining timber and natural habitat left from vicksburg to memphis.....go look at the state of mississippi forrest map at the wildlife museum....only about 3% of the delta remains in timber and of that 3%..98 is here in the lower Steel Bayou Backwater area......the reason it was not cleared in the 50'-60's was because it flooded....it is the lowest of the low....
and as far as PRIME WILDLIFE HABITAT..look up were the last sighting of the ..panther..bear...ivory bill...all were..

1..very little or no crops are being planted below 90 feet any longer..most farms were put in WRP (great for wildlife)
(mahanna wildlife...85..)
(delta national...88-93

2..the volume of water being pumped into the mississippi would only be and increase of 1%-3% of total volume.....
would not make a difference...

So now where are we....
Should we continue to flood the only prime habitat we have left in order to drain the upper delta in order to plant crops so that each of us can enjoy lower food cost...

There are no single answer...however when we consider the damage that has been done since the early 60's.....we began to understand that a tremendous loss fow each of us....

Also if a pump system was in place to maintain +86 feet ...how many acres of both public and private wildlife acres reep the benifits for each of us///

I am sure this will continue...

uncle walt and sam

[crow]

Hey, SDelta, do ya'll lease from Harold?

[Sdelta]

Crow,

NO, We bought from Mr. Thomas about three years ago.....Are you in the area very much when you are home?

SDelta

[Meeka]

Well, I had a great weekend alone in God's country (South Delta). Got a chance to round up the yard, spray for bugs, throw out ant poison and throw a dead snake away. Didn't see any live ones, even though I went in some prime moccasine habitat.

It looked like the Yazoo was way up. I stopped and looked at the gauge at Steele Bayou and it looked like about 87. The little Sunflower at Dummy Line looked about the same level. There is some water in the DNF, but most of it is not submerged.

The corn is 2' and looking great. Most folks just got cotton in. The bean land where I looked was not even disked. I wondered if a lot of it has been put into WRP.

It sure was wet up there.

Saturday evening at dusk I checked the water levels with Meeka and Zeus and gave the catfish about a 15 minute chance, no takers, then went back and sliced and fried some potatoes, sprinkled some lemon pepper and Tony's on some nice Speckled Trout fillets and battered and fried them. That was some of the best! The food, wind and delta sky made for some good rest, I'll tell ya. Put me in such a good mood I planted a tree and some bushes before leaving. I guess I'm getting old.

Munro and Lerch, they now have corn in behind the camp.

Walt, I'm guessing that area of your camp was some pretty prime hunting area back in the 40's or 50's when y'all got it, huh? Those quail and turkey's you mention sure do better in the hills. I'm guessing the reason the deer grow so big is because the soil is so fertile, don't you think?

[ May 20, 2002: Message edited by: Meeka ]

[crow]

SDelta,
I usually get around that part of the delta pretty often when I'm back home. My brother-in-law has a place back toward V'burg and I hunt Delta National a bit. I'm not back hunting nearly as much as I used to. Back before duck hunting was such a big thing, I hunted all over the south delta with landowner permission. Can't do that these days. My father-in-law was the county agent in Yazoo County for a bunch of years and I got to know everybody through him. Good days! Your place can hold some great numbers of ducks when it's right. I've hunted all up and down the road there, mostly on Harold May's property. I'm really glad to see so much of that propery go into WRP and CRP. If you look at a sattelite map now, there's almost a complete corridor of non-ag property from the MS River, up through Mahannah, to Delta National. Can't help but help the deer, bears and ducks. Makes a good study of gov't programs and private landowner cooperation to get something good accomplished. Anyway, I come back that way just to eat at the Onward Store, if nothing else!

[tupe]

My question would be... How is reducing flooding in an area thats habitat is defined by anual floods going to improve the habitat?
If I am reading you right Uncle you are saying that allowing less flooding would bennifit the habitat and wildlife, How can that be? These are bottomland hardwood swamps, they depend on flooding to remain vital and productive. And as far as the deer go, I don't know what your camp is like but all the camps I have ever belonged to or worked for that had a reasonable management plan had herds that were tip notch. I just cant see how this project would be worth the money and habitat loss it would cost.