Yet again, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has resurrected a destructive project in Mississippi's South Delta that would damage at least 90,000 acres of wetlands that support more than 450 species of birds and wildlife. Their "preferred alternative" for the Yazoo Backwater Area Water Management Project is slated to include a massive pump that will drain and damage hemispherically important wetlands.
Urge the Army Corps to abandon this project once and for all.
Please take action before the very short window of opportunity to comment closes on August 27.
Note: Your letter will be sent directly to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of a public comment period and will become part of the public record.
To the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers:
As someone who cares deeply about our country's birds, wildlife, and habitats, I am writing to express my strong opposition to the Corps' renewed effort to build the wasteful, ecologically devastating Yazoo Pumps. I urge the Corps to instead pursue a fully nature-based and nonstructural alternative in the Yazoo Backwater Area that can provide effective, environmentally sustainable flood relief for vulnerable communities and birds.
These Mississippi Flyway wetlands are so valuable that the George W. Bush administration vetoed the Yazoo Pumps project in 2008 through the Clean Water Act to protect tens of thousands of acres of nationally important wetlands—a veto that the current administration reasserted. This rare veto explicitly bars the Corps' preferred alternative to build a 25,000 cubic-feet-per-second pumping plant, which will critically degrade the ecological functions of at least 90,000 acres of valuable wetland habitat.
Yazoo backwater communities deserve commonsense flood relief through targeted nature-based and nonstructural solutions that can effectively get people and property out of harm's way, such as elevating homes and roads and compensating farmers to restore cropland to wetlands. Many local community leaders have asked for these 21st-century approaches that would benefit people and wildlife.
I urge the Corps to abandon its misguided efforts to build the Yazoo Pumps and, instead work to advance a fully nature-based and nonstructural flood relief alternative that will protect local communities and hemispherically important wildlife habitat.
[Your comment here]
Sincerely,
[Your name here]
