JACKSON, Miss.—A U.S. Corps of Engineers report on Friday dealt what could become a fatal blow to a decades-long and morphing strategy to build lakefront development along the Pearl River flowing between Jackson and Rankin County with the often-disputed promise of it being the top flood-control solution.
Supporters of One Lake, and the larger Two Lakes plan before being forced to scale it back, have long maintained that a lake/development strategy is the best and most affordable form of mitigating devastating flooding effects along the Pearl River. The Rankin-Hinds Flood and Drainage Control District, referred to locally as the Levee Board, worked with the nonprofit Pearl River Vision Foundation to choose its One Lake plan as the locally preferred option for flood control in the Jackson area—a plan that the U.S. Corps of Engineers has to approve before it can move forward.
Long-time oilman John McGowan, who died in November 2023, renamed his nonprofit Two Lakes Foundation that had pushed the failed larger project as the only anti-flooding option to become the Pearl River Vision Foundation to push for One Lake after fighting for a larger lake footprint near his own property since 1996. He and several of his partners in McGowan Working Partners, as well as Levee Board members, owned property in the lake footprint, as the Jackson Free Press reported in 2010.
The Jackson Free Press also exposed that that the Better Jackson PAC, a political action committee that ran ads about Jackson crime in support of a pro-lakes Jackson mayoral candidate, was made up of contributions from McGowan and partners, which amounted to failed candidate Marshand Crisler’s largest campaign contributions. They also contributed funds to help defeat a Rankin County candidate.
If a lake project were to ever happen, One Lake would provide economic-development and property-value benefits on both sides of the volatile river through the capital-city region, which lose immense property in the infamous 1979 Easter flood, which drove up to 17,000 local residents from their homes. The plan would likely require the use of eminent domain to acquire all the property.
The long-anticipated Draft Environmental Impact Statement, a 300-page report released today, took issue with the promised cost of the One Lake project, which it calls “Alternative C,” indicating that it would cost in the billions, not millions.
“Alternative C, as presented in the Section 211 Report, is not justified under the traditional USACE benefit-cost analysis,” the Corps’ DEIS stated today.” The LPP (“locally preferred plan” supported by Levee Board) costs and benefits are presented as a range of costs and benefits due to the current level of design. The LPP estimated project first cost range between a low of $1,046,068,000 to a high of $2,122,260,000 to produce a range of net benefits of—$25,915,800 to—$66,300,800 with a BCR (benefit-cost ratio) of 0.4 to 0.2. Alternative C accrues a damage reduction of $14,279,000, approximately 30 percent of the future without-project damages. Alternative C would accrue expected annual damage (EAD) reductions of $8,573,000, approximately 20 percent of the without-project EAD of $42,330,000.”
The new DEIS confirms a number of concerns raised by One Lake opponents from Jackson to Louisiana, as well as national environmentalists—including potential problems that its lobbyists have traditionally downplayed as exaggerations designed to stop a foolproof anti-flooding initiative that would also yield economic benefits.
People downstream all the way to Louisiana are particularly concerned about unsafe contaminants that can make the Pearl River left safe for human use as well as making seafood unsafe for consumption, which also threatens industries and livelihoods.
Toxicity and High Costs
One such red flag for the Corps is the toxicity construction itself could release. “There is a high probability of encountering HTRW (hazardous, toxic, and radioactive waste) during construction with implementation of Alternative C or if implemented as part of the CTO Alternative. Prior to construction, an ASTM E 1527-13 Phase I & II ESA would be completed due the findings that were discovered during the NFI’s reconnaissance of the study area. Please reference the HTRW section within the Environmental Consequence section of this document for additional information regarding any HTRW concerns.”
Then there’s the existing landfill threat. “The Gulf States Creosote Company Site is located within the project area. The site, or portions thereof, may require avoidance, remediation, or some other mitigating features. The unpermitted LeFleur’s Landing Site is also located along the edge of the proposed channel improvement excavation area. It would require additional capping and bank stabilization features due to potential leaching of landfill waste and groundwater movement in the area. Remediation design and coordination with appropriate local, State, and Federal agencies would determine site actions to eliminate potential leaching of landfill waste to the groundwater and movement of groundwater into the proposed channel improvement.”
In addition, the Corps addressed the daunting challenge of the moving and rebuilding of numerous bridges in order to accommodate the One Lake development. The Mississippi Department of Transportation warned the Levee Board in 2018 that the lake project could cause the “catastrophic” failure of local bridges.
“Rough estimations of the level of effort required to mitigate for bridge impacts include improvements for approximately 36 bents, 12 piers, abutment scour, as well as funding to conduct monitoring surveys,” the DEIS explained. “A pile is a concrete post that is driven into the ground to act as a leg or support for a bridge. A bent is a combination of the cap and the pile. Together, with other bents, act as supports for the entire bridge.”
The DEIS also affirmed One Lake critics’ belief that Alternative C could actually increase flooding in high-risk areas where many residents believe the effort could reduce their flooding. “Residual impacts associated with Alternative C include headwater flooding along the tributaries contributing to high frequency flooding; roadways being inundated by flood events in certain areas of the study area, impacting emergency services; and impacts to water distribution where flooding is not addressed.”
“That means One Lake backs water up into the tributaries … (holding) the pool of its lake at 258 above sea level,” Andrew Whitehurst, water program director at Healthy Gulf and a long-time critic of building lakes in the Pearl River told the Mississippi Free Press today in response to the DEIS. “Right now the pool held by the waterworks dam is at 250. That’s eight more feet of water through most of the urban section of the Pearl. That would permanently put more water into the mouths of Town Creek, Lynch Creek, and Eubanks Creek. To a lesser degree, White Oak and Purple Creeks. In essence, those creek mouths become coves, or fingers of the lake.”
Stated plainly, this means that many residents of Jackson, which is majority Black including in the most flood-prone neighborhoods, did not get accurate information when told that One Lake was the answer to their flooding woes, if the Corps’ conclusions are correct.
Last summer, the Corps began taking public comments on several possible anti-flooding possibilities for the Pearl River. It was the first time in years that local residents in the Jackson area and at meetings along the Pearl downstream had access to an official microphone to express views, pro and con, about the One Lake option.
Since then, the Corps has indicated in a number of ways that it might not endorse Alternative C, so today’s DEIS is not entirely unexpected. And in December, WLBT reported documents that the Pearl River Riverkeeper obtained from the Corps via a public-records request that indicated that the projected costs of “One Lake” were much higher than its backers have long promised—”between $1.3 billion and $2.1 billion, with another $492 million to $1.5 billion needed to mitigate hazardous waste sites in the project’s footprint.”
That is a great deal more money than the $221 million that the U.S. Congress allocated for a strategy to alleviate flooding on the Pearl River in 2022.
Mayor Watts: ‘Somewhat Encouraged’
Monticello Mayor Martha Watts has emerged as a major critic of the One Lake plan for myriad reasons, including potential devastating economic hits it could cause to industries in her town 62 miles downstream Jackson—from effects on a paper mill providing good-paying jobs to local tourism along the Pearl River, which abuts its downtown. Watts, a Republican, has allied with environmentalists and others to oppose the project and to raise awareness far from Jackson in a bipartisan coalition against the project.
Watts and others who fear the project all the way to Louisiana are angry that the project’s backers have shown little interest in their concerns, naming the lieutenant governor, governor and a U.S. senator whose son she said has done paid work on behalf of the project. “This elite group certainly doesn’t care,” Watts told the Mississippi Free Press last year. “None of those politicians ever called me: not Delbert (Hosemann), not Tate (Reeves), not Roger Wicker has called me and asked, ‘Martha, how is this going to affect you down there?’ No politician has bothered to look below Jackson; yet they want our votes.”
Today, Watts is cautiously hopeful that the Corps, and thus the federal government, is acknowledging what she sees as fatal flaws in the One Lake plan, but she believes the Corps could do a better job fully acknowledging the myriad ways the plan could hurt people and livelihoods downstream to the Gulf of Mexico.
“While we are opposed to any further alterations to our river, I am somewhat encouraged that this study appears to be complete in realizing the environmental aspect, wetlands concerns, and the aquatic and wildlife needs,” Watts told the Mississippi Free Press. “I feel it falls short on downstream repercussions—downstream as in much further south than Rankin/Hinds counties. We want to know that our water levels will remain sufficient for our needs.”
WLBT reported today that the Lake backers are working to again retool their plan in order to still build a large lake in the Jackson area that might alleviate some of the consistent problems in earlier plans.
The Corps also announced another round public meetings for comment in Jackson and downstream communities at the following locations:
- Wednesday, July 10 – 2 p.m. – Mississippi Public Broadcasting Auditorium, 3825 Ridgewood Road, Jackson, Miss.
- Wednesday, July 10 – 6 p.m. – Mississippi Trade Mart, 1200 Mississippi St., Jackson, Miss.
- Thursday, July 11 – 11 a.m. – Slidell Municipal Auditorium, 2056 2nd St., Slidell, La.
- Thursday, July 11 – 6 p.m. – Monticello Civic Center, 125 E Broad St., Monticello, Miss.
The Jackson Free Press, whose journalism assets the Mississippi Free Press acquired in 2021, did award-winning coverage of the various Pearl River lake proposals for two decades. Some backers of the project even credited reporting of Jackson Free Press editors and journalists for the project having to scale back to a plan for one lake rather than the more ambitious two lakes. Read the JFP coverage here.
Read more recent coverage of One Lake in the Mississippi Free Press here.
Correction: This original report misidentified “LPP” in the Corps’ DEIS. It stands for “locally preferred plan”—the one the local Levee Board supports—and now has been corrected in the text above. We apologize for the error.
