The National Audobon Society issued the following statement.
Today, a coalition of conservation organizations filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s last-minute revocation of a Clean Water Act veto that has protected some the richest wetland and aquatic resources in the Nation since 2008. This revocation opens the door for construction and operation of the same project prohibited by the 2008 veto—a massive pumping plant known as the Yazoo Pumps that would drain tens of thousands of acres of hemispherically significant wetlands in an ecologically rich and sparsely populated area of Mississippi known as the Yazoo Backwater Area.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) buried its veto revocation in a cover letter transmitting scathing comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the Yazoo Pumps’ Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. EPA’s revocation ignores the facts on the ground, the explicit terms of the 2008 veto, and the requirements of the Clean Water Act.
EPA has used its Clean Water Act veto authority very sparingly, issuing just 13 vetoes since the law was enacted in 1972, out of nearly 2 million projects approved during that timeframe. EPA has never before revoked a veto.
Earthjustice filed the lawsuit in federal court today on behalf of American Rivers, National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, and Healthy Gulf.
Joint Statement by American Rivers, National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Healthy Gulf, and Earthjustice:
“Today’s lawsuit delivers a clear, resounding message that EPA’s assault on the law, science, and the public’s voice will not be tolerated. The case challenges EPA’s last-minute decision to exempt the Yazoo Pumps from a conclusive Clean Water Act veto that was issued in 2008 to protect some of our country’s most valuable natural resources. EPA’s stunning reversal defies the explicit terms of the agency’s own veto, violates the Clean Water Act, and disregards core principles of administrative law that include ensuring due public process.
EPA has blinded itself to the facts on the ground, its own scientific and legal analyses, and the extensive record supporting the 2008 veto. The current proposal is based on the same flawed methodologies that EPA decisively rejected in 2008, and would not deliver flood relief to communities by leaving 82% to 89% of flooded lands underwater.3 The project will have devastating impacts to globally important wetlands, waters, and wildlife.
During the public comment period on the Corps’ 2020 proposal that concluded in November, more than 50,500 citizens, scientists, and public interest groups urged the Corps to abandon this ineffective, destructive project, and instead prioritize immediate, sustainable flood solutions to benefit local communities. Ninety-four percent of the comments received by the Corps were against the Pumps and called for commonsense natural infrastructure and non-structural approaches available now to help protect people’s lives, property and livelihoods, such as elevating homes and roads, and paying farmers to restore cropland back to wetlands.4
EPA’s decision has no basis in fact or reality, and signals that political motivations have trumped the agency’s sworn duties. We look forward to holding EPA fully accountable for its unlawful actions, to ensure the public’s voice is heard, and to safeguard the environmental protections bestowed on this globally significant area.”
40 comments:
Leave the land the way creator made it. It’s all supposed to flood from time to time.
Let's see what kind of political heft you got Bennie. Put up or shut up.
The environazis need to step aside and let us make progress as a state. I don’t care about the furback cricket squirrel.
"The science." Where have we heard that buzz word before? I don't know about the other organizations, but The Sierra Club is not the organization that it was decades ago. It is a money grabbing organization with high overhead and big perks for the staff, just like the NRA, PITA, and the ASPCA. Only suckers would donate to them.
I have messages where I messaged the Sierra Club of Jackson about a year ago about them opposing it and the destruction and death of wildlife and pollutants during the flood and the goof balls wrote me back saying they never oppose the pumps. KF, I can provide if you want them.
Where will the pumps move the water? I was on a paddle wheeler during the last flood. It was apparent from the garbage on the river that water was entering rather than exiting the yazoo river at Vicksburg. Someone please “educate” me.
1:23 PM, so you'll support removing all the other similar pumps on the Mississippi?
1:23 - the Creator did not place that massive Steele Bayou dam at the base of the Yazoo Basin. That construction, done by the same government that has blocked its completion with the installation of the pumps, is what is causing these floods, not the Creator's grand design.
Everyone likes to complain about usace but if you really think about what they’ve accomplished it is amazing. The delta floods bc it’s a delta. Eagle lake was created by floods. The fact the ms river hasn’t changed course is amazing. Seriously usace has accomplished massive engineering feats. But we are Mississippi so we will just sue sue sue the gubnment. It would be like the inhabitants of ancient Egypt suing the Sphinx because they failed to rotate their crops
Can all of the know it alls on here tell me why every other state with a backwater levee has backwater pumps, yet Mississippi doesn't? Don't worry, I'll wait.
Democrats should look very closely at the turnout maps from 2020 CHS vs Espy. You can't afford any more population loss in the Delta.
@2:16 & 2:20
Rip it all out and detonate every levee.
The simple truth is that if we didn’t spend billions annually to maintain such unnatural devices then mother nature would destroy them and father time will restore the ecological balance of flood plains.
But I thought it was the Miss. Wildlife Federation
that stopped the pumps! So says the " Finish the Pumps" crowd
The river always wins-always.
Eagle Lake created by floods? It is an Oxbow lake. Please connect the flood dots for us. Thank you.
Reminds me of the cartoon my Dad had hanging on his wall for years...long before memes. It was a single pane cartoon of a Corps of Engineers General standing with a pointer in front of a presentation board depicting a map of the river system of the USA, in front of seated Corps of Engineers personnel. The caption simply read "Gentlemen, it's been brought to my attention that there is a free flowing stream in North America."
I recently read that the USACE will be having a reduction in force because the Chinese invented a shovel that stands up all by itself.
@3:46
Oxbow Lakes are formed when the river path changes and deposits sediments after... get this... A FLOOD!
" the destruction and death of wildlife"
I "hunted deer" three times over the holidays and didn't kill anything.
It was truly sad indeed. But I did realize I do need a new tree stand.
(Also, not as many ducks to shoot this season from what I've heard).
BTW,
No doubt PETA has better looking neck'id girls than the Audobon Society & Sierra Club.
I know nothing about this subject. So, where the pumps return water? Back to the river?
Have pumps been used on other parts of the Miss River?
The Mississippi Department Of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks did a study of how wildlife was affected by the last flood. I attended the presentation of that study and was appalled at the damage to the animals and slightly sickened by it. The damage was not just to the white tailed deer but also to the aquatic animals as well. When the turtles came upon the backwater levee, the only land around, the raccoons ate them. Even the alligator nests were predated. All these charlatan "wildlife" organizations care about is something to beat the drum about to raise money, that I'm sure, most of which goes to the people running the organization, and not a dollar to help any wildlife. How can people who are for wildlife be for something that decimates the population? Follow the money and you will find the reason. This does not even address the severe problems the flood caused to the human residents.
We would need about a dozen KF's and their researching skills but I want to know who owns the land that the pumps are draining. I keep hearing that we are talking about just under a million acres - there are some pretty big farms in that area. Are we spending hundreds of millions of dollars for 5,000 landowners or 50? And, if it's closer to 50 who are they?
Whatever is near where these pumps end needs to one call that’s all.
Good trump fiscal conservatives want to spend 10 billion dollars of my money so you can screw old whores at the Lo Sto and drag crappie from float row?
Wont ever happen
Actually it's 52. And they're all white catfish farmers. You see, when it flooded, the catfish done r-u-n-n-o-f-t with the flood waters and therefore left none for Bennie Thompson to fry up for votes. See how that works now?
Unbridled ignorance in more than half the above posts.
This debate about the pumps has been raging for decades. From its inception, the only benefit would be to private landowners who purchased swamp land and now want the government to spend the people's money to make the landowner richer. It was and is, a ridiculous pork barrel project to produce marginal, and expensively maintained, farmland that no one but the landowner will benefit from.
It will also destroy natural habitat that is simply irreplaceable. The economic benefit to the state and its population are minuscule compared to the loss of our natural environment. I, for one, am sick and tired of feeding the farmer. Just another "welfare for the rich" project. You may rest assured that given the clear facts of the benefit/cost of this project that any politician who supports it is getting his pockets stuffed.
It will also destroy natural habitat that is simply irreplaceable.
Not true.
The pumps will not destroy wildlife nor benefit just private landowners. There are hundreds of thousands of acres of state and federal owned lands. USFWS refuges, UFS national forests and state WMA's were all impacted. And it wasn't just the wildlife, the trees were impacted too and the effects of sitting under water during the heat of the summer has yet to be determined. The pumps WILL NOT DRAIN THE WETLANDS per the fear mongering from these groups. They will only cut on at a level about a certain water height. At that height, there is still a good bit of flooding going on. The people opposing the pumps are the same type people that live in Fondren and Belhaven and don't have a freaking clue about the south delta and how the ecosystem works. All they know is some other hippy told them its bad and to spread their lies.
Also, 6:27 there are a lot of low income people that grew up and live in this part of the world. It will benefit them.
6:27 and others. You keep touting "loss of habitat". Please explain how that is going to happen. I am curious. My guess is you cant explain with facts how it will destroy habitat.
6:27. Every single thing you wrote is incorrect. Do a little research. Finishthepumps.com will help you.
There are almost NO catfish farmers in the Delta now and NONE of them are in the area affected by flooding. Only the ignorant among you think wealthy landowners are involved. Thousands of families who live in this huge expanse are flooded out regularly now due to mismanagement.
Not a one of you shivs a git about this phenomenon, its solution or those impacted...all you do is spout your ignorance and prove your inhumanity.
“Your tired of feeding the farmer”....well let’s hope the farmer doesn’t get tired of feeding you. The majority of the comments on this page just shows the ignorance of the people that are against these pumps. They speak about land that they have no clue about or live anywhere near. Go ahead, make your comments, and just “know” how it is from where you sit. If you really want to know, come stay with me during a flood period. You’ll get a quick education. Just a quick information of truth. The pumps will be set at 89ft in elevation. Guess what that means? All the area still floods. Only thing the pumps will do is skim the rest off. Conservation still happens, and more wildlife survive because they aren’t being wiped out by the flood.
Go down to our Gulf Coast next time they open the Bonne Carre Spillway to relieve the pessure built up by all those pumps along the Mississippi. Last year, the marsh in the lower Pascagoula Delta was flooded for months and the oyster inustry was wiped out in all tree counties. And take a look a the size of the Dead Zone south of the river's mouth; it's about the size of Connecticut. They need to cut back on the number of pumps, not add to it. And yes, jobs are at stake, the jobs of the oystermen and shrimpers and crabbers. But if you're okay with getting your seafood from overseas, go right ahead. Pump, baby, pump!
One large landowner in the area, Billy VanDevender, vehemently opposes the pumps and has been vocal about it. He has recently bought a timber mill as well as loves to buy up land and especially at discounted prices, so there's that. Stressed trees needing cut? People selling out cheap because all of their property has been flooded multiple times in the past 10 years? Seems logical to me. If you hunt over there, and he and his wife do, you have been able to see the impacts of the prolonged floods. It's sad to see actually. Pregnant dead does, losing whole age classes of deer. Chemicals and fuels in the water. The Sierra Club and their ilk dont like to talk about that while they support the south delta flooding.
10:08 the science behind the pumps says the water level will be a miniscule rise in river level. Also, they will only pump over a certain level. The water all has to come downstream at some point. One more pump wont matter much. Also, if LA would open their spillways earlier, or send it through The Basin, you wouldn't have the destruction that it has coming through in one big prolonged wash.
10:54 As I said, they need to cut back on the number of pumps not add to it.
The bottom line here is that these “conservation” organizations need a “cause” to continue to solicit donations. It’s a money grab! They really don’t care about the facts, merely a fresh supply of funds to continue to exploit the victims here. The victims include the residents of this area, the wildlife, the habitat/wetlands, and the water quality. These types of organizations should face scrutiny from government agencies and be accountable to the victims. It’s sad to see these organizations use outside donations and propaganda to continue cause personal and environmental harm.
The same people that are member of the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, et all, etc, are the same uppity, white guilt people who live in Jackson who blame their neighbors moving for the problems in Jackson.
Where will the pumps move the water?
The water will go down the Yazoo River and into the Mississippi. Same place it goes when the Steele Bayou gates are opened. Not one drop more of water will be pumped into the Mississippi than will be drained into it when those gates are opened. The only difference is that it will be pumped out at 14,000 cfs earlier during a flood instead of “opening the flood gates” and let it out at 48,000 cfs at the end of a flood. Either way, the amount of water and where it goes is the same.
Crickets from those asked how the pumps will destroy habitat. They don't know because all they know are the talking points given to them from these environmental groups. At the level the pumps will cut on, there will be a ton of water in the natural wetlands. THERE IS NO WAY THESE PUMPS CAN ACTUALLY DRAIN THE WETLANDS.
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