A coalition of and over in Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky are urging President Obama to block the Army Corps of Engineers from completing a $165 million levee project in Missouri鈥檚 bootheel.
The New Madrid levee project would plug a gap in the Birds Point-New Madrid floodway, which is designed to ease flooding near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.
In a letter sent to the president today, the conservation groups requested the EPA use its veto power under section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act to permanently halt the project. It was first proposed in the 1950鈥檚.
The proposed project carries risks to wildlife and public safety, according to MelissaSanet, senior water resources counsel for the National Wildlife Federation.
The levee would cut off the last place in Missouri where the Mississippi River can naturally flow into floodplain area.Sanetsaid it would devastate fish populations in this stretch of the Mississippi River.
鈥淚t cuts off critical spawning and breeding habitat,鈥漇anetsaid. 鈥淚t鈥檚 also incredibly bad for shorebirds and migratory waterfowl and other migratory birds as they fly in the spring and fall migrations.鈥�
Sanet said the levee would encourage intensified agricultural use by a handful of landowners who farm the floodway.
鈥淏ecause the project is designed to intensify the use this floodway area by farmers, it鈥檚 going to make it even more difficult for the Corps to activate the floodway in a timely manner when flooding occurs,鈥漇anetsaid.
RichardGrigsby, the president of the NAACP in Alexander and Pulaski Counties in southernmost Illinois, said the levee would put majority-black towns like Cairo at risk.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a civil right issue because people would lose their homes, where they make their living, where they鈥檝e lived all their lives,鈥滸rigsbysaid. 鈥淭his would affect both blacks and whites. It might affect the blacks more, but it would still affect them.鈥�
The Army Corps last activated the floodway in 2011 when rising waters on the Mississippi River threatened Cairo and flooded the small community of Olive Branch.
Copyright 2020 KRCU Public Radio. To see more, visit . 9(MDA1MjI2NzUxMDEyNzQyMTY5MjQ2YzkwNA004))
