Corps of Engineers trying to find pumps to drain East Prairie

EAST PRAIRIE, Mo. -- The waters are bulging from their banks along every roadside ditch in town. Front yards have been transformed into tiny lakes, forcing residents to pull on boots just to check their mail.

Along Highway 80, which slices through this small town of 3,200, there are spots where National Guard soldiers protect sections that have been closed by record amounts of rainfall.

At a local church, a sign almost pleads with anyone who drives past: "Pray for sunshine!"

As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers scurries to find pumps to drain the saturated St. John's Basin, the mayor of East Prairie is lamenting an incomplete project that he believes would have helped keep the water out of his town.

"If that project would have been finished, they had a plan to put pumps in that would have pumped the water out of the St. John's Basin and over into the river," said Mayor Kevin Mainord. "It wouldn't have gotten nearly as bad as it is right now."

The plan he's referring to is the New Madrid Floodway Project, a corps design that was first proposed in 1954 but came to a halt in 2007 based on environmental concerns.

In September of that year, a federal judge ordered the Corps of Engineers to stop construction of the flood-control project. U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson ruled in favor of two environmental groups, Environmental Defense and the National Wildlife Federation, which had brought a case in 2004 opposing the long-controversial project.

The corps had already started work and had already spent about $7 million toward the overall $107 million project. The judge's ruling forced the corps to dismantle its work to preconstruction standards.

The St. John's Bayou/New Madrid Floodway project had been proposed along the Mississippi River and was intended to transform two drainage basins in a 400,000-acre project area -- the New Madrid Floodway and the St. John's Basin to its west.

The floodway project would close the now-famous 1,500-foot gap in the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway. The project would have included construction of a system of gates to control the water flow between the river and the floodplain and include a large pump to remove water from behind the gates when necessary.

The portion that Mainord is especially upset hasn't happened yet is the St. John's Basin part that would have involved constructing a second pump to remove water that collects in the lower part of the St. John's Basin, and widening and straightening three channels to speed water removal from the area.

The corps said last week after activating the last breech of the floodway that its focus was shifting to East Prairie and it was working to keep more backwater from getting into the town by coming up with a plan to get existing backwater out.

When a reporter referred to the project Thursday, Col. Vernie Reichling, the commander of the corps' Memphis District, shook his head.

"The pumps would have helped," he said.

Now, the corps is scrambling to locate pumps to send the waters back to the Mississippi River, Mainord said. Corps officials told him Friday that they were able to find 10 pumps to push surface water out of the basin through 42-inch pipes.

"That will give us and the Missouri Department of Transportation some breathing room," he said Saturday, noting MoDOT's campaign to keep the water off Interstate 55. The pumps, which are outside New Madrid, Mo., would also take pressure off Anniston, Bertrand, Sikeston and other Southeast Missouri communities. Corps officials did not return calls seeking comment Saturday.

Residents of East Prairie are left living with the problem.

Johnny Jackson lives on South Dutch Drive, a street on which nearly every home has water in the yard. When a FedEx truck pulled up in front Friday, Jackson waded through his yard's foot-deep water to get his package.

"The water doesn't have any place to go," Jackson said. "My grandkids can't even get out to play in the yard. The water is falling, but it's falling slow."

Mainord is hopeful that the recent flooding -- the worst he's seen since 1973 -- will bring attention back to the New Madrid Floodway Project, which environmental groups said would cut off the last major piece of connected flood-plain habitat in Missouri from the river. The corps has said it would reduce flooding in Scott, Mississippi and New Madrid counties, which have all seen high water levels in the past two weeks. The project has long had the support of U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, but Mainord believes money and the environmental concerns are still an issue.

"There have been public entities for years trying to get these pumps in place," Mainord said. "It's a problem that should have been addressed long before now. You know how it is, out of sight, out of mind. This time, it should open some people's eyes to the tremendous problems it causes not having these pumps there."

Staff writer M.D. Kittle contributed to this report.

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

East Prairie, MO