sunnylab wrote:
There are benefits to the pumps and its not just in extreme high water situations.
In extreme high water the benefits are less - where will you pump that water to? There are still people saying it'd pump over faster than it'd flow back over. I don't but that but I'll give you that - but WHAT if Peter Nimrod was correct with his initial estimate on Monday May 2? He said:
It just got out of hand!
All,
Truly BAD news to report.
MS RIVER FORECAST
The NWS has significantly raised the Mississippi River Forecast.
Arkansas City 53.5’ crest on May 14th
Greenville 64.5’ crest on May 15th
Vicksburg 57.5’ crest on May 18th
This forecast will exceed the 1973 highwater levels by 6’.
This forecast will put us 3.5’ above the 100-year flood on the MS River.
The 100-year flood on the MS River is 61’ at Greenville and 54’ at Vicksburg.
YBW AREA FORECAST
At this forecast the Yazoo Backwater Levee will OVERTOP by 1.3’! The Yazoo Backwater Area could be entirely flooded. The Corps is working on an inundation map so we can see exactly what will be flooded. Hopefully I will get a copy of that map tomorrow. This could flood up to elevation 109’. If you are located on property at or below 109’ you might get flooded.
At this point - Greenville and above will not be flooded.
Public Meeting – Rolling Fork – Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 10am at the National Guard Armory on Hwy 61.
Sorry for this HORRIBLE news.
What if he had been correct?
What if even at 107, with the height of the levee 106.3 - there plastic doesn't hold and it cuts through that levee - and that levee fails?
What good would those pumps do then???
That height of the gates is 112. That is slightly above '27 floodwaters if the levees HAD held. The levee should be that height too. If they are truly worried about the integrity of the backwater levee a concrete spillway to allow water in should be built. It would work like overflow structures on Arkabutla/Grenada/etc. Not dirt where you throw plastic over it in an emergency and hope it holds.
Some of the people commenting on this thread have no clue how the pumps actually work and what they are designed to do.
I live in Sharkey county. I am very familiar with how the corps says they are supposed to work. I have access to the bound copy of the Yazoo Backwater Reformulation Plan.
The last estimate they released was $181 million dollars.
In 2008, Nimrod was quoted as:
“In 2008, the backwater got to 92.2 feet, which flooded 344,000 acres, including 121,000 acres of farmland,” Peter Nimrod, the board’s chief engineer, told a hearing of the Mississippi River Commission at Greenville last month.
The cost benefit ratio for this project was 1.4. For every dollar spend, they'd get 1.4. That's if you believe that every structure in south Sharkey and Issaquena is still occupied and/or not seasonal deer camps. Since then the US census has showed a huge % drop in Sharkey and Issaquena populations and also there is more land in WRP and CRP here.
I'm sure some here would try to lump me as anti-pumps. I'm not. In all honesty I don't give a damn if they build them or not. The won't help if the backwater levee fails. When the water is extremely high, and the integrity of the levee is in question - pumping water over makes no sense. It's just gonna come back over, lengthening the time that the levee could wash out.
As far as the government wasting money - they waste it all the time on all sorts of things I have no say in so this would just be another.
So build them - they would not help in this situation. If that levee fails - we're screwed. Everybody on here wants to talk about hypothetical situations - levee failure is a very real possibility. And if not, it's the only hypothetical that most south delta residents are concerned with.
I've heard they want to get the pumps, then build the levee up. That's the most @$$ backwards thing I've ever heard, if that is true. I also thought they said it was low to relieve pressure - if so, how can you build it up? You're telling me it can be built better? If so - go ahead and do it now.
And again - I don't care about what happens during normal years - during most normal years a much smaller area (than all of sharkey and issaquena) floods seasonaly due to Sunflower/Steele bayou backwater. It'd be so much cheaper to pay those people to plant that in trees and build the levee up higher so it wouldn't break.
Regardless - to answer the "how can you argue with that" - i was hoping that was sarcastic. We know that a political organization would never bend the truth. We know our government has never lied to us. Never. It'd be un-American to suggest that. I mean, nobody on here has ever mistrusted anybody in our government.
I'm for flood control that make sense and depending on pumps when the levee ain't big enough doesn't make sense.
Where is YOUR proof that that this is the worst flood in the last 500 years? Any flood in the early 1900s is only approx 100 years ago. Hell, our country gained its independence from the British only approx 235 years ago. Has the COE been around that long ---making their measurements as far back as 1511?
