A little water is typical, not normally enough to close the roads, which happens when the water hits elevation 90. It's been over 90 a few times in the last 20 years, for a few weeks in the spring. This year it was between 95 and 98 for nearly 7 months, historical height and duration. The triangular shaped 600,000 acre area is known as the Yazoo Backwater, is "protected" by a system of levees along the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers which intersect just north of Vicksburg, MS.
When the MS River basin gets a lot of rain/snow up north and the rivers rise, flood gates in the levees are closed to prevent the rivers from flowing backwards into the area. Pretty smart, right? The rain that falls in the area stays inside as long as the flood gates are closed, and they remain closed as long as the water is higher outside than it is inside. The final piece of the project, pumps to maintain the water elevation at 87 feet in the backwater, were never installed due to a ruling by the EPA, blocking the completion of the project. Hence, catastrophic flooding is possible with high rivers and lots of rain in the area, the perfect storm so to speak. They opposed the pumps, saying that they would destroy the wetlands by draining them.
At 87 feet, the wetlands portions (about half the acreage) are flooded and it's an incredible wildlife habitat for all sorts of birds and animals, an incredibly beautiful and bountiful wetlands habitat for all sorts of migratory waterfowl, native birds, deer, rabbits, possums, pigs, raccoons, coyotes, bobcats, black bears, etc.. Corn and soybeans are farmed in the adjacent farmland, providing even more food / habitat. When the water is 95 - 98 feet, it's not wetlands, it's a 10 foot deep lake with no dry land, mammals leave for higher ground or die if they can't get out. The big mammals, deer, pigs, bears, coyotes and bobcats can travel to higher ground, but they're confined to small tracts of dry land where they starve as the land is stripped of its vegetation due to overgrazing. The smaller mammals die of starvation in the trees as they hang on for life. People have their homes flooded, and farmland is underwater and can't be farmed. The farmers planted no crops this year in some of the most fertile land in the MS river valley.
There's a move afoot to bring the pump project back to life, hopefully, politics won't get in the way this time..............Sorry for the long soap box.........
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