Recently, I attended a meeting where a very serious issue that threatens our entire Gulf Coast region was discussed. If you don’t already know of the Bonnet Carré Spillway, then I sincerely recommend it is time you do. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers control of the Mississippi River is causing serious negative effects to our beloved Mississippi Sound. Many of us recall the 2019 summer when the Corps of Engineers opened the spillway twice to control flooding, and in turn, we had a fisheries disaster on our hands. Oyster farms were decimated, fisheries were limited and tourism was halted. While it seems that things have been smooth sailing since then, we are not out of the storm yet.

In order to understand the gravity of this issue, we must dive into the details. The Corps of Engineers maintains the flood control of the Mississippi River by way of the Bonnet Carré Spillway. The spillway was built between 1929 and 1931 and is situated about 12 miles upriver from New Orleans. It is a spillway that uses dated technology of manually opening logs to let water through. There are rivers and tributaries from 31 states that feed into the Mississippi River and are released at the spillway. This means that floods from extreme rains and melting snow consisting of fresh water from over half of the United States makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually into our Mississippi Sound. Not only is the fresh water a concern, but there are several pollutants such as animal waste, fertilizers, pesticides, antibiotics and other chemicals that severely damage our Mississippi Sound Estuary.

The Mississippi Sound Coalition is an organization that is fighting this issue and the City of Pascagoula is in full support. The coalition is seeking win-win solutions for both flood control and the Mississippi Sound. In the short term, they are seeking to push the Corps of Engineers to utilize alternative ways to manage the Mississippi River by re-engineering spillways upstream to distribute floodwaters, modernizing the existing spillways to avoid leakage and opening existing spillways to at least mitigate some harm from the Bonnet Carré Spillway. In the long term, they are working to address the pollution that flows into rivers and tributaries in 31 states through a coordinated national effort and to request Congress to change laws that govern management of the river.