Mississippi Levee Board Gives Strong Support to Pumps

WARREN COUNTY, MS (Ben Caxton) — The Mississippi Levee Board went on record in a statement released Wednesday in support of the completion of the backwater pumps project. The board’s statement, by chief engineer Peter Nimrod, took direct aim at knocking down environmental misconceptions about the effect of the system. Nimrod wrote that “Solid scientific data demonstrates that the Yazoo Backwater Pumps will help, not hurt the environment. The severe environmental damage of backwater flooding has not received the attention it deserves, because the focus has been on the economic and human hardship of flooding.” The report noted that it’s the 53″ per year of rainfall that maintains the backwater ecology, not the periodic flooding. Aquatic species suffer and die in floodwater from a lack of oxygen and few survive also damaging populations of waterfowl dependent on them.

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