By Gregory Crofton
Senior Staff Writer
In the 1920s, the clear spring waters of Puskus and Cypress creeks flowed freely into a river in northern Mississippi called the Little Tallahatchie. The creeks nourished the river, supporting a wide variety of fishes, wetland hardwood and wildlife. Canoeing the Little Tallahatchie from near Etta to Abbeville was a reality, and fishing for bass was guaranteed. Today such a journey is impossible.
Currently, the spring waters from Puskus and Cypress Creeks are diverted into an 11-mile flood control channel just north of the river. A once thriving section of Little Tallahatchie River is now a 23-mile-long shiftless, partly dried-up body of water known as the old Little Tallahatchie riverbed.
As of Jan. 13, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' project that targets this stagnant section of the Little Tallahatchie, which is located approximately 15 miles north of Oxford between Hwy. 7 and Hwy. 30, is still going forward. The project will divert the clear, clean water of Puskus and Cypress creeks back into the old Little Tallahatchie riverbed. The new water could potentially revitalize the area's wetland vegetation, bring back fish like bass and crappie and make feasible a 23-mile canoe trip.
"The Corps of Engineers (U.S. government) will fund 75 percent of this project and I've got to come up with the other 25 percent," said Gerald Inmon, the project coordinator of the Friends of Upper Sardis Wildlife Management Area, a non-profit conservation organization dedicated to this "re-rivering" project.
"They came in and funded the study and determined that it was going to be $1.7 million project," he said. "There's four phases to this project. The first phase was to determine the cost. The second phase is the environmental analysis report which is scheduled to start Wednesday. Basically, I've got a year to come up with $400,000. There's a possibility the year-long study would come up with some reason why they can't do it, but I can't foresee one."
Inmon, who retired a year ago after working for 25 years at the U.S. Forest Service, said one hope for raising the money will be through a process called mitigation. He has written the corps hoping this "re-river" project will be designated as a recipient for mitigation credits (money).
"If somebody, for instance, wants to go in a wetland and build a casino, because we've lost so much wetland over the last 100 years, there are pretty strict laws as to what you can and can't do," Inmon said. "But sometimes you'll get approval for a (wetland) project if you'll mitigate or make-up for it somewhere else. ... One big spender like a casino could do us some good."
Inmon said that a man-made channel does not have the self-cleaning mechanism that a naturally-formed river bed does.
"A winding river has a function that lets the water filter out and clean it," he said. "If it's a straight shot, it just gathers more turbidity and gets muddier." The channel and the old river bed rejoin and drain into wetlands about 10 miles from the Sardis Reservoir.
The existing flood control channel was formed by straightening and digging in and around the natural riverbed of the Little Tallahatchie. The channel, created by the Corps of Engineers in 1930, is a ditch just north of the old riverbed meant to prevent flooding of farmlands in northern Mississippi. It is virtually a liquid highway sending drainage water and the water of the Puskus and Cypress creeks on a swift journey toward the Sardis Reservoir.
Renee Turner, study manager of the little Tallahatchie re-river project and employee of the Corps of Engineers' Planning Division, said it was likely the corps had made a mistake in diverting the creeks into the channel back in 1930.
"We have to have a link to a previous project that contributed to the degradation. Of course that happened," Turner said. "That's why we're allowed to take on the project. This project has been approved all the way up to Washington."
The Sierra Club, a national environmental group since 1895 has been a long-time opponent of the flood control work of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Mississippi.
"They're just sticking their finger in the dike," said Louis Miller, the legislative director for the club's Jackson branch. "They've been spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to correct their stupidity in the Everglades. I told the corps 10 years ago that they were running out of rivers to screw up. I don't have any confidence in the corps' ability to do things right. ... This project sounds like a drop in the bucket."
Inmon said the re-diversion of water would not increase the area's potential for flooding. "They've got the channel and it will still be there for flood control," he said. "Put the water back in the old river for normal flow and it would be a fish habitat again instead of a pig trough."
Melvin Warren, a fisheries ecologist for the Southern Research Station (Oxford is part of this station) of the U.S. Forest Service, said if the "re-river" project is completed, an estimated 87 species of fishes could potentially thrive in the renewed river. Currently, the old river contains mostly grinnel, mudcats and trashy fish.
"It will be interesting to see how much Mother Nature can heal that bottom wood (wetland trees) and a big chunk of habitat," Warren said. "By renewing that water, it can change the composition of the trees and the wildlife. ... I think we'll see some effects on the number and kinds of fishes almost immediately."
All of the land involved in the project is public property. "This area is the closest thing we have to wilderness in Northeast Mississippi," Inmon said. "It's a walk-in area, four-wheelers aren't allowed. It's all federal property. ... The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Forest Service and the state Department of Wildlife Fisheries and Parks are all involved in this area. It took a group of local sportsmen and a group of concerned citizens, a nonprofit conservation organization, to make something happen. The beauty of this project is that it's a grassroots organization."
Kevin Pigott, a graduate student in biology, is currently studying the wetland trees along the old section of the Little Tallahatchie River. He said that with other similiar river restoration projects, the wetland vegetation typically takes many years to rejuvenate.
"It's not going to change over right away, it's not like a sponge," Pigott said. "These trees grow for years; it takes decades."
Charlie Cooper, an ecologist for the U.S. Research Service in Oxford, said the opportunity to renew this old section of the Tallahatchie will not be around indefinitely.
"In another 10 years the channel (the old Tallahatchie) might become choked because of its ecological succession and sedimental deposition," Cooper said. "We have a window of opportunity at this point that Mother Nature might take away."
Warren said this project may be just what North Mississippi needs. "I think it has the potential to succeed and be a real asset," he said. "It's close by. We all could jump in our car and be out there in 20 minutes. Given how fast Oxford is growing, we could always use more room to recreate."
Those interested in joining the project team or sending partnership/pledge letters and tax-deductible donations can write to Claude Jones, secretary/treasurer of the Friends of the Upper Sardis WMA, 372 S. Liberty St., Pontotoc, Miss. 38863.