Court to Decide on Flood Project — Would Mean Huge Acreage Loss Along Miss. Floodplain

By Tom Charlier charlier@commercialappealcom

NEW MADRID, Mo. – In a remote corner of Missouri that nestles along the Mississippi River, the federal government plans to give a lot and take a lot.

Pending a court decision that’s due in the next month, the Corps of Engineers soon could move forward on a $110 million flood- control project that will bring about the largest loss of river floodplain acreage in decades. But that loss would be offset by one of the biggest environmental-restoration initiatives ever conducted in the Lower Mississippi Valley.

The St. Johns Bayou and New Madrid Floodway project will reduce backwater flooding in this area 120 miles north of Memphis by closing a 1,500-foot-wide gap in the main line Mississippi River levee system and improve drainage in the St. Johns basin. Among the beneficiaries will be farmers, who no longer would lose thousands of acres of crops and be isolated by flooded roads during some years.

But the project long has been controversial with environmentalists, who have filed numerous court challenges because it will shut off one of the largest remaining areas of floodplain that the river occasionally inundates. The floods, covering up to 75,000 acres some years, replenish wetlands and provide spawning and rearing habitat for fish.

“It’s a stunningly, stunningly damaging project,” said Tim Searchinger, a senior attorney with Environmental Defense. That organization, along with the National Wildlife Federation, filed suit against the project claiming it violates the federal Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act.

A decision from U.S. District Court in Washington is expected by sometime in May.

The environmental concerns, and persistent challenges from opponents, prompted officials in the corps’ Memphis district to add an unusual amount of restoration work to the project.

In fact, up to $38 million – or 35 percent – of the project’s cost will come from environmental-restoration efforts or features that minimize ecological damage, said Larry Sharpe, the corps’ project manager for the New Madrid work.

“Heretofore, for most projects a fairly high number was 15 percent (for environmental features),” he said.

The corps refined the project, even drafted a new record of decision, and outlined new ways to improve the environmental aspects of the initiatives, Sharpe said.

As a result, the “mitigation” features of the project include plans for massive reforestation in the basin. More than 1.5 million trees would be planted across more than 5,000 acres of the New Madrid Floodway and St. Johns Bayou.

In addition, the corps would build a culvert structure with a gate to funnel water from the Mississippi into Big Oak Tree State Park, located more than 10 miles east of New Madrid.

The park is home to a dozen state champion-sized trees, including a bur oak that rises as high as a 15-story building. But because of levees and other alterations to the hydrology of the forest, “the old champion trees are dying and are not being replaced,” states a sign in the park.

The culvert project will be complex. “You want to get enough water into the park, but not impact the neighboring landowners,” said Danny Ward, a fish and wildlife biologist with the corps.

Sharpe said that with the environmental features, the overall impact of the New Madrid project is positive.

But Searchinger and other environmentalists say otherwise.

“Fish can’t swim through walls,” Searchinger said, referring to the levee closure that will cut off the floodplain.

He also contends the corps violated federal law by using “distorted analyses” in assessing the costs, benefits and need for environmental mitigation associated with the project.

Ted Heisel, attorney for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, called the New Madrid initiative “one of the biggest wetland-drainage projects in the country.”

Heisel said that not even the extensive reforestation and other environmental work planned by the corps compensates for the damage.

“We’d rather them do that (reforestation) than not, but it doesn’t offset all the damage from the project,” he said.

– Tom Charlier: 529-2572

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