Local leaders are disputing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ cost projections in its recent document assessing flood control plans for the Pearl River.
The Corps released an updated Environmental Impact Statement on two proposals aimed at preventing Pearl River floodwaters from devastating homes and businesses in Hinds and Rankin counties. After rejecting the “One Lake Plan,” a proposed multi-billion-dollar plan to minimize flooding risk in the region, due to its cost, officials went back to the drawing board with Alternative D1 and Alternative E1 options.
Alternative D1 entails removing the 100-year-old weir at LeFleur’s Bluff Park and constructing a new weir further south down Interstate 20 to create a more than 1,000-acre lake. A weir is a small barrier, or low-rise dam, built across a river or stream to control and raise the water level on the upstream side.
Meanwhile, Alternative E1 serves to dredge, clear, and grub the river, expanding it just as D1 does, but without building a weir. Both plans include the expansion of a levee and the addition of three others along the river.
Though the two plans fall under the $1 billion threshold, the Corps still has heavy price tags attached to them, especially Alternative D1. The federal agency estimates the proposal would cost between $873 million and $917 million to bring to fruition. The Rankin Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District disagrees with the financial projection.
The district is a public agency made up of the mayors of Jackson, Flowood, Pearl, and Richland, along with representatives from Hinds County, Rankin County, and the state of Mississippi.
Local officials contend that this same project was estimated to cost just over $325 million back in 2022, raising questions about the markup of more than $500 million, or a 168% increase. Pearl Mayor Jake Windham, who serves as the board president for the state-backed body, is suspicious that bad actors are potentially behind a nefarious plan to sabotage any major flood-related project in central Mississippi.
“Only the federal government could think that digging up dirt between two levees would cost $800 million,” Windham said. “The same bureaucracy, acting on influence from environmental activists, that has kept the metro region from flood protection for decades seems to be at it again with inflated costs designed to undermine the project.”
Another cost-estimate element of the Corps’ evaluation is the usage of a 47% contingency, an added amount of money to the base cost estimate to account for possible risks, rather than the industry standard of 15% or below. Local officials claim that a bulk of the money dedicated to the project will go toward excavation.
While the Corps is estimating excavation will cost $22 per cubic acre, the Rankin Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District argues that local contractors have quoted a price “about half that amount.” The group fears that an inflated price projection will drastically minimize the ability for the project to be financed, as the benefit-cost ratio would be driven down.
“As President Trump and the work of his Administration have shown, there is rampant waste of taxpayers’ money throughout the federal government. We don’t want to see that same type of wasteful budgeting infect this locally driven project, too,” Windham. said.
A 45-day public comment period is currently underway for the public to offer its feedback on the Corps’ proposals and projections. In the meantime, local leaders are demanding that the federal agency articulate how it calculated its price tag for the flood-control projects while simultaneously expounding on the methodology used to configure the total cost.
