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How can terrestrial mammals and birds survive under water? How can terrestrial vegetation survive under water during the growing season? It by far benefits fisheries more than wildlife. There is a State WMA in the lowest of the low in the described area. I know for a fact that there hasn't been a turkey hatch on said property in the last 5 springs, and would bet a months pay that it has been 10 or more years since a hatch has occured. It is true that the Delta is dependent on floods, shallow floods for short durations, not 6+ feet for months on end. Have you ever tried to count tree growth ringes on areas below 85 ft MSL in this area? They are to close to count. Close growth rings=slow growth.

Crow,
The famous Onward Store, beleive it or not but my wife was 7 months pregent and She made me drive from our camp at Eagle lake just to get her some Tamales.....Yes, there can be numbers if the conditions are right. This year was great when we were flooded and had to take a boat into the property they would come in waves from Delta National. When the water left so did the Ducks all but the teal.

As we speak all that land is going under for the third time this year....Hope it gets out soon I have some seeds that needs to get in the ground

SDelta

thanks scott for your info...

That is the point I have been trying to impress...we are putting 5-8 feet of water for months on end therefore no undergrowth, no cover, no brouse...when i was young (60's) riding horses in the same swamp, the cover and undergrowth was so thick that you horse would get tangled in "buckbines, sawbriars, honeysuckle ect".... Have to get off and cut your way out...wonderful cover for rabbits, turkeys, dear,....

Now....no rabbits, no turkeys, no undergrowth, none... go into Mahanna's timber..it is just like ours...nothing has changed since 1960's except the water...

places that you had to crawl on your hands and knees..cane breaks...vines...small trees...are all gone...you can see for 100-300 yards in the timber...

flood water has taken it all away....

walt and sam

SB, its good to hear from you. Your work might get slow when everything is under water. Maybe it get's more intensive.

I think Muddy has a good and valid point. The reason that Mahanna has so much to offer is because it is a bottomland hardwoods swamp. It was created by the annual flood events. The soil is so rich because of those floodwaters. I don't have to tell a biologist this, though. You could probably share a lot of info about the nature and history of that environment.

I wish mahanna could have the best of everything, but certain habitats favor certain animals. If you eliminate the flood events, you eliminate, eventually, the nature of the environment in that area. Yes it would take a while.

I believe our maker intended it the way it was; without the levees, dredging, structures, etc. On the other hand, we must exist and a balance must be struck. Where should the line between natural, semi-natural and man-made be drawn? I say mostly outside of Mahanna. Of course, y'all are helping the habitat there now in small ways. I saw 15 or so new water control structures there the other day.

I guess the point of this discourse is that Turkeys weren't meant to live in the Mahanna area, but fish, deer, ducks, snakes and other stuff was. Yes, the water slows the growth of the trees and other vegetation, but those plants are there because of the flood environment. Pines were meant to grow in the hills for the Turkeys to roost in.

IMHO.

[ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: Meeka ]

What kind of conditions are around the Tallahatchie River and Yalobusha River, near the town of Webb as well as Malmaison?
Is the water still extremely high?

GOOD INFORMATION...

This "post"...may never end....

more info later...

take care
uncle walt and sam

First let me say it is indeed an honor to dialogue with a fellow whom has hunted the south Delta since 1954 (Uncle Walt)...Second that this is a good line of valuable information...Now for the meat of my comments:

Walt and Scott have hit the nail on the head but have not addressed the right problem: The problem is the Big Ditch...

All the water from Big Sun, Little Sun and Deer Creek has been channeled into Steele Bayou just north of the Yazoo River, instead of flowing directly into the Yazoo at the proper locations...

The solution is not the Yazoo Pumps as proposed at Steele Bayou...They would lessen flooding under some circumstances but not prevent it...

The solution is closing the Big Ditch and spreading the flooding out as nature intended...Area wildlife can deal with seasonal flooding as nature intended...The problem is that the Corps has changed the depth and duration fo the flooding...

If you dont like that idea, then go back to the original plan and build 3 small pumps such that the gates at Big Sun, Deer Creek and Steele Bayou can be closed to keep the Yazoo River out, yet the interior flood water pumped out...In conjunction you would use the Upper and Lower Sumps to hold floodwaters as the Corps initial plan envisioned...

And as anybody with common sense knows, you'd rather pump water from a higher elevation than a lower elevation...By channeling the water to Steele Bayou, the Corps has insured a much greater "lift at head" than if they pumped the majority of the water upstream at Big Sun and Deer Creek...

The Corps did good work when they built the Mainline Levee, the Yazoo Backwater Levee and the 4 reservoirs, but most everything else has been make work and of little benefit...To make matters worse, the Corps has lost their focus on the single most important aspect of flood control in the Delta- the Mainline Levee...By mining dirt for the Mainline Levee from the woods between the levee and the River, the Corps is destroying one of the key protections for the Levee...Those trees are key in protecting the Levee from erosion during floods...Instead of getting the dirt from the woods on the interior of the levee the Corps should get the dirt from adjacent ag fields on the protected side...

In fact, if the Corps were serious about protecting the Mainline Levee it would buy easements on every acre of farmland between teh levee and the river and reforest every single acre...Trees absorb flood waters, protect the levee from erosion and absord earthquake shocks...Heaven forbid a "trembler" on the New Madrid Fault during a high water spring...In 1811 or 1812 such an event caused the MS River to run backwards at Reelfoot Lake...If and when the Good Lord decides that such an event should recur, then those whom have placed their faith in the Corps of Engineers will pay with their lives.

HAMMER

MAN, This is some direct comments....Hammer is right on.....I believe these kinds of discussion does nothing but good to help educate......

SDelta

Good job Hammer. Something I see above is mention that the sumps would not eliminate the flooding, but lessen it. Is that true? Where did that info come from? I always thought the sump(s) was/were intended to prevent flooding in the South Delta.

Hey Meeka:

You said the "sumps"...Do you mean the two areas that were supposed to stay in swamp- one north of Delta National Forest near Anguilla and the other in the Mahanna area- or are you talking about the Yazoo Pumps- which is actually a water pumping plant consisting of 6 of the worlds largest hydraulic lift pumps?

Assuming they were reforested, the SUMPS would catch and hold water and thus prevent flooding until the point when the low areas filled up and the water flooded out...

The PUMPS would prevent flooding only to the extent the area rivers were pumped low enough to hold floodwaters- pumping the rivers this low is not good for fish and other river dependent wildlife or wetlands that are tied to the river systems- and possibly in the unusual event that the rain fell in just such a fashion that you could pump the crest of the river surges... Otherwise, the Pumps would remove the floodwater after it flooded such that it might not flood as long but it would still flood....

In other words, the Pumps would prevent flooding in some, but not in nearly all circumstances...It would depend on how high the Mississippi and Yazoo are, how long they are high, how much rain falls in the North and South Delta and how fast it falls, what level the 4 big reservoirs are, how many wetlands remain in the Yazoo Backwater Area, whether or not the Big Sun gets dredged and many other factors, but to say the Yazoo Pumps would prevent flooding like a levee prevents flooding is not true.

HAMMER

Sounds like a tour of the effected area and a discussion of the costs and benefits of flooding is in order. Now is as a good of time as ever with the river at its current level.

We have to face up to the fact that we have already drasticly altered the environment. The question that is before us now is should we alter it even more? SB as you may remember I worked on Mahannah, and hunted it long before it was a WMA, in those days there were some turkeys, not alot but some. Bu just up the road at DNF I have seen some of the largest flocks of my life.
As far as the tree growth goes, well, unless you are hoping to harvest the existing timber, why does it matter. I know that it will slow the growth of new trees, but isn't this how that particular ecosystem is meant to work?
And any way, the Backwater pumping project would not eliminate the flooding, it MIGHT lower the overall depth but it will not reducethe frequency of flooding. Why is it that we as humans think that we know how to manage aflood plain better than nature. And just how much alteration of that cycle can we disrupt with out forever changing the ecosystem?
I think it unwise to allow the north delta to dictate what is donewith the habitat of the south delta. This whole downstream mentality is a crock. How would farmers northof 82 feel if the project was designed to save land south of them by just building a damn and letting it back up on north?

M.B.

Keep going ...this is good info and also important...

many of us now realize that the pumps were planed not to drain the lower steel bayou backwater...but to reduce some of the flood water forced in from both of the sunflower rivers....

and the reason steel bayou was chosen was that was the lowest point...could lower the flood water in all 4-rivers at the same time...1..Steel bayou...84..FT
2..DEER CREEK....86FT
3..LITTLE SUNFLOWER..88
4..BIG SUNFLOWER.....89FT.

more info later...

WALT AND SAM......

Due to this porject the Big Sunflower River is listed as one of the top ten endangered rivers in teh US. The dredging and stumping of the Sunflower alone is enough for me to say that this project should be stopped.
Also COE projects are currently being halted in order to review their cost/bennifit.
I wonder how anyone could look at a waterway and decide thatit would be improved by ditching, stumping and channeling? I will go back through my information on this and post up some links to various opinions and research into this project.

M.B.

P.S. It should also be remembered that back before the COE did an end around to avoid having to get matching funds, when put to a vote the people of the area effected by this project voted against it.

Here is a report from American Rivers from early April
http://www.americanrivers.org/pressrelease/2002bigsunflower.htm

I'll dig up more.

M.B.