The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken steps to stop a new effort to construct a flood control pumps project for the Yazoo Backwater Area of the Mississippi Delta.
Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith has made the Yazoo Backwater Area Pumps project a priority since becoming a U.S. Senator in 2018, and was also instrumental in securing funding for pre-construction planning and other activities on the New Proposal for the Yazoo Area Pump Project.
“This EPA action is an abuse of discretion and couldn’t be more arbitrary or capricious. It also opens the door to a host of legal questions that should, and will likely, be challenged,” said Hyde-Smith.
“I will continue to work for the people of the Delta to try to salvage this project, which should have been built decades ago. I do know we absolutely do not need empty platitudes from the EPA on a ‘path forward’ and environmental justice. We also do not need our own working against a project that will ultimately protect lives and the environment from repeated catastrophic flooding.”
Critics claim the pumps would cause unacceptable damage to some of the nation’s richest wetland and water resources by draining tens of thousands of acres of ecologically rich wetlands in Mississippi’s South Delta.
