Fighting for the Delta
On
the Senate floor, Senator Cochran and I recently led a successful
effort to soundly defeat a Senate amendment that would have
been a blow to flood control plans in the Mississippi Delta,
specifically the Yazoo Backwater Pump project. With no regard
to the many poor Mississippi residents whose homes and businesses
are threatened by the flooding which the pump would control,
the amendment was offered by a Senator from the dry, mountainous,
desert state of Arizona. Needless to say, Arizona is a place
with weather patterns, economic makeup, geography and natural
disasters much different from that found in our Mississippi
Delta.
Though many of our fellow Americans may not live with or
fully comprehend the threat of floods, Mississippians have
coped with flooding throughout our history. In fact, during
the "Great Flood" of 1927, flood waters killed
more than 500 people, leaving 700,000 people homeless and
27,000 square miles under water. In response to this event,
Congress passed the Flood Control Act of 1929, making flood
protection in the Mississippi Valley a federal responsibility.
Part of this plan called for the construction of the Yazoo
Backwater Pump - a project authorized in 1941 to reduce
flooding in the south Delta, which is today one of our nation's
poorest areas.
The project makes sense because almost half of the continental
United States drains through the Delta. We are in the neck
of a huge natural funnel which gives us very fertile soil,
but at the same time it threatens lives with flooding. A
trained engineer, former Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice
once remarked that flooding was one of the worst kinds of
natural disasters, and I agree. When flood waters get into
a home, the home is virtually uninhabitable thereafter.
The smell from the receding water is awful. The sediment
is almost impossible to remove. Poisonous snakes, like water
moccasins, often get into the home and bed there. Recovering
from a flood can take months or even years.
Since passage of Flood Control Act of 1929, we have made
great strides against flooding, but much remains to be done,
particularly in the south Delta. The five counties that
will directly benefit from the Yazoo Pump–Humphreys,
Issaquena, Sharkey, Washington, and Yazoo - are in great
need of economic development and job creation. Yet, it is
hard to create jobs in an area susceptible to chronic flooding.
As the Delta's own Clarksdale Press Register newspaper recently
noted, it is impossible to separate the area's double-digit
unemployment from the threat of flooding, "because
the flood prone area is virtually useless for residential
or commercial purposes, including agriculture." Thus,
without the Yazoo Pump, the economy of the south Delta could
remain repressed indefinitely.
Critics of the Yazoo pump consist of a hodgepodge of environmental
extremists, Washington bureaucrats and liberal editorial
writers - mostly from outside the Mississippi Delta. Even
though the Yazoo Pump would help reforest more than 62,000
acres, protect more than 1,000 homes, and prepare the way
for much needed new jobs, critics stubbornly contend the
pump benefits only "wealthy planters." The only
alternative they offer south Delta residents is to just
move - leave homes, businesses and family history behind
in a government-forced sellout. That doesn't sound like
much of a plan to me, and I suspect itwould be even less
attractive to folks in the south Delta whose homes or businesses
would be taken. Similar pumps are already in operation.
In fact the W.G. Huxtable Pump in Arkansas is almost the
same size as the Yazoo will be, but drains only half the
acreage that the Yazoo pump will. The Yazoo will protect
2.6 million acres, while the Huxtable plant drains only
1.3 million acres.
I am proud to stand with Congressman Thompson and Senator
Cochran in bipartisan support of the Yazoo Pump. Our job
is to fight for people in Mississippi, not for those outside
our state who have little appreciation for the unique natural
and economic challenges facing Mississippians, particularly
people in our Mississippi Delta. 1/30/03
Senator Lott welcomes any questions or comments about
this column. Write to: U.S. Senator Trent Lott, 487 Russell
Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510 (Attn: Press
Office) DBJ
