Corps of Engineers to prepare environmental impact statement on the Yazoo Backwater

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Vicksburg District, announced Thursday its intent to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, or SEIS, for the Yazoo Basin Reformulation Study, Yazoo Backwater Area.

In a notice published in the Federal Register, the USACE said that “recent floods and new data on the environment in the Yazoo Backwater Area prompted this new project proposal.

“In 9 out of the last 10 years, the Yazoo Backwater Area has experienced significant flooding. In particular, the historic flood of 2019 caused two deaths, caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, flooded over 600 homes, and significantly adversely affected the aquatic and terrestrial environment.

“The recurring flooding has demonstrated the need to complete the Yazoo Area Pump Project feature. New, previously unavailable data indicates that the environmental impacts to wetlands and other resources from a pumping plant would be far less than calculated in the 2007 FSEIS.

“The Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement will tier from and update the 2007 FSEIS with new data. It will not reformulate the broad array of alternatives previously examined in the 2007 FSEIS but will analyze a new project proposal to build the pump project (the Proposed Action) in light of the new data.

“The Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement will also examine environmental measures to mitigate the low dissolved oxygen content in the Yazoo Backwater Area, which is currently detrimental to aquatic species.”

The statement will be available in October.

Read the complete notice in the Federal Register. For more information visit the USACE website.