Is anything on your calendar for 2032?
It’s hard to type much less fathom that actual year.
At first glance that will be my late father’s 100 year birthday. But that’s the end goal for the South Delta Yazoo Pump project to actually finish. Yes, it’s been 84 years since the promise was made so a century of hope and promise will, cross your fingers and knock on wood, the pumps will be in place and finished. After billions and billions of dollars in losses over that century, money that could have completed the project several times over, the bleeding will be stemmed.
It will take three years for mitigation and planning. A partnership of Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy and Delta Wildlife will buy up 6,125 acres of land that is below the 90 foot level the pump doesn’t protect. That’s about 200,000 acres but not crop land according to Mississippi Levee Engineer Peter Nimrod. And that land is from farmers and landowners who want to sell. No one will be forced to sell. And there will be land needed to actually build the pump on.
Once all that dust is settled, the actual shovels in the ground will commence and hopefully a three-year build will be enough to complete the process. All in all, seven more years. It’s hard to get giddy about it until it’s finished. It’s hard to hope when there’s politicians involved and we’ll be through a couple if not three presidents by then and a gaggle of congressmen and women.
As former President Ronald Reagan once said, the scariest phrase ever heard is, “I’m here from the government and I’m here to help.”
We shall see. I don’t know how many farmers have left their turnrows due to the lack of help the past 84 years. Many have survived and continue to plow and plant and harvest what they can. The rich Delta land that floods will hopefully be transformed into a duck hunter’s paradise, attracting more people and visitors to the area. The seasonal business should help the area overall and hopefully be a springboard to more. We shall see.
Seven more years. Sounds Biblical and hopeful and the prayers continue that never stopped for the past century to get this done.
Lord willing and the creek don’t rise….
