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People who are opposed to this should realize that if the men behind this had their way, they would pick cotton up to the waters edge. There would be NO habitat, unless it made just as much money as cotton.

This is about money, and using land to make it. That is 150% what this is about and nothing else.

They dont care what happens to the rest of the environments. They want to make money on the part of the rivers edge that they control, and they could care LESS what happens to the rest of it.

If you left these men to do what they please, they will destroy every square inch of habitat to make money on it.

We as a population cannot forsee these things. Has we been able to do this, in the late 40's and early 50's, we could have stopped the destruction of untold millions of acres of habitat that are now so marginal, that they want to dredge the river so they can get the money. They should have never cleared that land to begin with, and we should have paid them from the very beginning to protect our resources.

I just dont understand why people dont think we are supposed to PAY THEM to protect them.

If they can make money on a crop on that land, and we want habitat instead, then you have to PAY them. Dont give the GD COE 250 million which is going to turn into 450 before its over and everybody knows it.

Give it to these men in the form or control devices so they can make money and we can have habitat TOO.

Dike and Pipe................

As it is, they would scrape it off clean all the way to the gutters to make money on it. They dont care, believe me, I work with them every single day and I know how they feel about it. To HELL with some habitat, I want MONEY.......

That is what it is ALL ABOUT......

As Usual

Lacuna,
Could you please help me out here, I still am not sure where you stand on this? You say that dredging will not help but that we have to do something, but the options you offer are not on the table. What I am asking here is that we stop a project that will NOT solve the problem, and will only damage the river and the wetlands that are drained by it. I think that after we stop the WRONG plan from happening we can get around to figuring out the RIGHT way to do this. If we had the option of just letting well enough alone I would be in favor of that but at present we have to face the real possibility that this project, and the whole Yazoo Backwater Pumping Project is a threat to the wetlands of the Delta.

M.B.

I'm sorry MB I just see this from so deep inside the issue that sometimes the obvious isnt obvious to others and I have to explain how I got here.

Prior to the dam projects, Enid, Sardis, Grenada, Arkabutla, all this ground around the sunflower and other rivers was ALL unfarmable.

It stayed wet, BUT, it stopped the water, and the water deposited it's silt and the river continued to try and meander around the high spots as all rivers do.

Then we put control in the water entering the system with the dams. Right behind that all that marginal land dried up and the farmers made a unpresidented move to the river bank, clearly up untold millions of acres of land that should have never been cleared.

This problem started a LONG time ago.

RIGHT THEN, the COE should have been working tirelessly to STOP the runoff by diking and piping the water in the delta AS WELL. (which is nothing but a lot of mini grenada lake dams along the river. same thing)

They STARTED IT, but they didnt FINISH.

The result is the river filled in, and now all that marginal land that they cleared back then is NOW back to where it WAS, because the water did what it is SUPPOSED to do, and the COE let it happen.

Now they want to fix their screw up and ruin these habitats AGAIN, by dredging instead of diking and piping like they SHOULD have done in the 40's.

My stance is "dike and pipe it" and clean the river where it NORMALLY wants to jump out of it's bank to make another stream. Yall may not realize it but we tamed these rivers because of property boundries and do not let them meander like they would normally do, around normal silt deposits.

You cant do that without having to dig it in SOME places just to keep it in the crack.

So I guess my stance is to at least maintain the river channel, but to dike and pipe it all the way so that this type of correction isnt necessary nearly as much.

This promotes waterfowl habitat in a BIG WAY, I mean BIG.

If duck hunters got behind that and made a fuss big enough to get them to actually DO IT, the delta's duck hunting AND the river, would be SO much better of it's ridiculous.

They wanna solve it by just cutting it deeper. That will duplicate the conditions of the 40's, they will till it to the banks, which is why this is allhappening anyway.

You cant let them do that, but you cant tie their hands to clean the river where it needs it either.

You have to do both, but in the long run, the best thing for EVERYBODY is to dike and pipe it.

You come to my place, it's right on the sunflower. I have two basins, one diked, one not, you can see the difference with your own eyes. When you see it, you will go
OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I SEE what you mean......

You have to remember that this is about MONEY, and you MUST provide that MONEY, from a different avenue. You are NOT going to stop it, you can forget that. You have to solve it with something BETTER, but they STILL get their MONEY.........