The Marion County Board of Supervisors recently passed a resolution against the “One Lake” project on the Pearl River in Jackson, becoming the first Mississippi county to do so.
With the action, Marion County joined St. Tammany Parish and Washington Parish in Louisiana in its opposition to the project. All involved are concerned about damming, reduced river flow, degradation of river habitats and wetlands, and the potential harm to industries and municipal sewage plants permitted to discharge into the Pearl River.
Board President Randy Dyess said Wednesday they’re evaluating the project and want to hear both sides.
“We’re concerned about the project,” he said. “We don’t need less water flow in the river.”
Marion County experiences low flow from July to November each year partly because it is located downstream of the Strong River, the largest tributary coming from the east, and is upstream of the confluence with the Bogue Chitto, which flows into the Pearl River from the west. There is a local saying that “If the river gets any lower, the catfish will get ticks.”
According to the Gulf Restoration Network, there are plenty of reasons to oppose the 1,500-acre project, which will extend from Lakeland Drive in Jackson to south of I-20, but north of Savanna Street. Work will include excavating and widening the river and using material to create levees and shoreline.
The One Lake project had been promoted as a way of improving flood control for Jackson, Flowood and Richland. It is currently undeveloped floodplain, forest and wetlands. The One Lake project would be situated about eight miles downstream of the existing Ross Barnett Reservoir, completed in 1963 on the Pearl River. Dredging to widen the Pearl River and damming to impound a new 1,500-acre lake would destroy 1,000 acres of wetlands and impact two threatened species having designated critical habitat in the project’s footprint: Gulf sturgeon and the Ringed sawback turtle, according to the Gulf Restoration Network.
Proponents of the plan, which was voted on by the Rankin Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District, say it is the preferred alternative because it would foster economic development along a new urban riverfront.
According to a story published in the Clarion Ledger this week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality have already given their approval to the project.
District 2 Supervisor Terry Broome, whose District includes the Columbia Water Park located along the Pearl River, said he is concerned.
“The discussions that we had in the boardroom were that the spillway at the reservoir now causes a tremendous amount of problems on the river,” he said. “It is regulated or staged at the reservoir and we either can walk across the river or we are so high that it is flooding low-lying areas. We don’t see anything but another project to be developed and have the same problems that we have now with the reservoir. I don’t see how we can have another regulated stage of the river.”
Broome said officials in Marion and other counties and parishes are concerned about the effects of the project.
“If this is developed, and you know the land will be, then they are going to want to keep levels up on the lake,” he said. “Look at the river now in the summertime when you don’t have excessive rain, it’s all but dried up in areas. I don’t know how we can stand more than what we’ve already got.”
Broome said Board members had spoken with state Rep. Ken Morgan on the issue.
“He enlightened us a little on it as far as the process,” he said. “It has already gone through two phases of approval; it’s very much a concern. The resolution simply presents our statement against the proposal. It has been sent up to the legislators.”
Several other state and local governments and agencies have passed similar resolutions, including the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources Commission, St. Tammany Parish, Washington Parish, Bogalusa City Council and Monticello City Council.
