Mississippi

The Controversial Plan to Unleash the Mississippi River

Published

2 years ago

July 23, 2022

The Controversial Plan to Unleash the Mississippi River

The LSU report, although, grew to become finest identified for its proposed answer, which centered on counteracting levees. The authors recommended that some water and dirt be diverted out of the Mississippi, again into the marshland. Let the river resume the work it had been doing for hundreds of years, earlier than it was restrained, in different phrases. It’s an concept that has captivated engineers and ecologists ever since.

To check the idea, scientists started to chop by means of the pure banks close to the river’s mouth. (As a result of the land close to the mouth was so irremediably swampy, levees had been by no means constructed alongside the river’s previous few dozen kilometers.) By the tip of the Eighties, the US Military Corps of Engineers was engaged on a extra substantial “diversion” at a web site referred to as Caernarvon, simply upstream of Plaquemines Parish: Right here, a set of gates permits water to move by means of a tunnel beneath the levee and into the marsh. The venture’s official objective is to provide contemporary water to the marsh’s delicate crops. When development started, although, native newspapers described the venture as a possible conduit for sediment—not only a option to protect marsh, then, but additionally to rebuild it. Certainly, only a few years after the gates had been opened in 1991, a whole bunch of hectares of recent marsh had fashioned.

By then, the federal authorities had begun to fund different restoration tasks, too. Soil dredged out of the river was dumped alongside the shoreline; rock partitions had been constructed alongside eroding seashores; new sand was added to the barrier islands that sit simply past the delta; a second small freshwater diversion was constructed. However these efforts weren’t sufficient to do what many believed was mandatory: to construct the type of giant diversions that would assemble whole sub-deltas.

Then, in late 2005, Hurricane Katrina walloped New Orleans, kicking up sufficient gulf water to submerge a lot of the ridge-top metropolis. The lacking marshland, many scientists identified, may have absorbed a number of the energy of the storm-driven waves, serving as a type of hurricane velocity bump. Ecological arguments had by no means prompted vital motion, however injury to non-public property proved completely different. Three months after the storm, the state launched a brand new company, the Coastal Safety and Restoration Authority (CPRA), which oversees each coastal restoration and flood safety.

The subsequent 12 months, an company official approached leaders in Plaquemines Parish to debate a proposal for a large-scale diversion. The state wished to situate the diversion close to the group of Myrtle Grove, a group of luxurious properties on stilts above the marsh in Barataria Bay. The native response—from the fishing business, from the native oil firms, from the farmers who develop citrus on the ridge right here, and from the owners—was, because the Occasions-Picayune famous on the time, a near-unanimous “no, thanks.”

The unhealthy blood goes again generations to an enormous flood that rolled down the Mississippi in 1927, inundating a lot of the US South. This was the Hurricane Katrina of the period, a catastrophe that seized the nation’s consideration. Because the surge of water approached New Orleans, officers obtained permission to journey downstream with dynamite and blast a gap within the Mississippi River levee, which had grown so large that it was now seen as an issue. The floodwaters, trapped, grew greater, threatening to run over the levee’s high. Metropolis officers hoped that by giving the water one other outlet, the water would drop close to New Orleans. Certainly, town was spared, although Plaquemines Parish was inundated. The residents had been promised compensation for the injury, although little ever arrived.

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Mississippi

Jerry Gray, 68 of Mendenhall, Mississippi

Published

6 hours ago

June 15, 2024

Press Room

Jerry Gray, 68 of Mendenhall, Mississippi

Visitation will be held on Monday, June 17, 2024 from 1:00 P.M. until 3:00 P.M. at Colonial Chapel Funeral Home in Magee. Funeral services will be held on Monday, June 17, 2024 at 3:00 P.M. at Colonial Chapel Funeral Home in Magee. Burial will follow in Magee City Cemetery in Magee, Mississippi. Bro. Joe Metts will officiate. Colonial Chapel Funeral Home of Magee is in charge of arrangements. 601-849-5031

Jerry worked at Cumberland’s Body Shop most of his adult life. He loved hunting, fishing, dirt track racing, camping, and being outdoors. Jerry loved his family and the love of his life, his wife, Carol Gray.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Velton and Lillie Mae Gray; brother, Danny Gray; sister, Sheila Gray Henry; brother-in-law, Steve Bridges; paternal grandparents, Odell Gray and Winnie Cook; maternal grandparents, Earl and Cammie Byrd.

Survivors include his wife, Carol Jones Gray; son, Michael Dickey (Deidra); daughters, Dawn Gray, Cherie Overby (Jeffrey) and Brittany Miller (Rob Elmore); grandchildren, Hunter Pope, Kory Gray, Kannon Magee, Abbigail Pope, Mayleigh Pope, Sawyer Overby, Waylon Overby, Chloe Miller, Layla Miller, Scarlet Miller and Hunter Dickey; brother, Odell Gray (Kim); sister, Lynn Bridges; aunts, Brenda Brandon (Jerry)and Betty Carolyn Bland; a host of nieces, nephews, and friends.

Pallbearers will be Levi Gray, Hunter Pope, P`nut Kennedy, Kevin Kennedy, Joe Boyle, and Joseph Boyle.

An online guestbook may be signed at www.colonialchapelmageemendenhall.com

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Mississippi

The United States Department of Justice and the Mississippi Attorney General move to prevent needed water rate relief to 40,000 residents of Jackson, Mississippi

Published

13 hours ago

June 15, 2024

Press Room

Actions by the US Department of Justice will delay or potentially eliminate the ability to provide water rate relief to the estimated 15,000 households served by JXN Water which currently receive SNAP benefits.

JACKSON, Miss., June 15, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — The US Department of Justice (US DOJ) and the Mississippi Attorney General filed notices of appeal from the order issued by US Federal District Judge Henry T. Wingate’s on April 16, 2024, directing the United States and the State of Mississippi to confidentially disclose Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) information to the Interim Third-Party Manager (ITPM).

The SNAP data is needed by the ITPM to identify customers that are eligible to be included in the new SNAP Customer Classification implemented with the new rate structure effective on February 1, 2024. The rate for customers in the SNAP Customer Classification includes a reduced availability fee, ensuring water and sewer bills can be paid by all. It will also allow the ITPM to avoid spending significant amounts of ratepayer money seeking to collect bills which these customers are simply unable to pay.

Judge Wingate’s order found the rate structure associated with the ITPM’s SNAP Customer Classification satisfied the criteria under federal statute for the confidential release of the SNAP recipients’ names and addresses so that they could be categorically placed in the SNAP Customer Classification without the need for extensive administrative efforts on the part of the ITPM and without requiring customers endure an additional burdensome application process to be appropriately included in the SNAP Customer Classification.

For reasons we simply don’t understand, the US Department of Justice disagrees that the ITPM’s rate schedule constitutes a federal assistance program under the SNAP statute and, accordingly, object to the State of Mississippi giving the ITPM the list (to be used in strict confidence).

The US Department of Justice has doubled down by threatening to withdraw SNAP benefits for the entire state if the State complies with Judge Wingate’s order. That threat has forced the Mississippi Attorney General to also appeal Judge Wingate’s order. The ITPM is an officer of Judge Wingate’s court, and his January 2024 rate schedule (including the SNAP Customer Classification rate schedule) easily qualifies as a federal assistance program. There is no good reason that DOJ can’t acquiesce and allow the State to share the list with the ITPM.

“While we would have preferred that Mississippi’s Attorney General not appeal Judge Wingate’s order, we recognize that the US DOJ has put them between a rock and a hard place given their threat to punish all SNAP recipients in Mississippi if the State gives the ITPM the Jackson area SNAP list,” said ITPM Ted Henifin.

These actions by the US Department of Justice will delay or potentially eliminate the ability to provide water rate relief to the estimated 15,000 households served by JXN Water which currently receive SNAP benefits. Under the ITPM’s rate structure, SNAP recipients would save $30 per month and save the ITPM untold collection costs.

The DOJ’s misguided opposition to the confidential use of SNAP recipient’s names and addresses to provide significant water rate assistance is inexplicable and disheartening given the economic challenges the beneficiaries face (Mississippi has the lowest per capita income in the nation and this rate relief is for residents of the City of Jackson, a community with a minority population of over 80 percent).

DOJ’s ill-advised and unnecessary opposition is particularly troubling given the water-related suffering these residents have endured for years.

ABOUT JXN WATER

Committed to providing safe, reliable drinking water and collecting and cleaning wastewater before it returns to our local waterways, JXN Water is the Mississippi corporation led by an Interim Third-Party Manager to achieve the objectives of the federal stipulated orders that re-establish the entire water system.

Media Contact

Ameerah Palacios, JXN Water, 1 5022435803, [email protected], www.JXNwater.com

SOURCE JXN Water

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Mississippi

2nd suspect arrested after abducted child found dead in Mississippi | WKRG.com

Published

20 hours ago

June 15, 2024

Press Room

2nd suspect arrested after abducted child found dead in Mississippi | WKRG.com

JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade said a second suspect has been arrested in connection to the abduction and death of a four-year-old girl in Mississippi.

Wade told WJTV 12 News that the female suspect, 32-year-old Victoria Cox, is an acquaintance of 36-year-old Daniel Callihan, who was captured on Thursday, June 13 in Jackson.

“She was arrested at 3880 I-55 South, the OYO hotel, here in South Jackson. Of course, it was a collaborative effort, again, between the FBI Task Force, Jackson PD, U.S. Marshal’s and Rankin County Sheriff’s Department,” the police chief said.

Jackson police said Cox was charged with capital murder and sexual assault. She was transferred to the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond. Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards said his investigators plan to question Cox.

Victoria Cox was taken into JPD custody on Friday, June 14, 2024. (WJTV)
Victoria Cox was taken into JPD custody on Friday, June 14, 2024. (WJTV)
Victoria Cox was taken into JPD custody on Friday, June 14, 2024. (WJTV)
Victoria Cox was taken into JPD custody on Friday, June 14, 2024. (WJTV)

Callihan was the suspect at the center of an Amber Alert in Louisiana before he was arrested on Boozier Drive.

According to Wade, 4-year-old Erin Brunett was found deceased in a wooded area. Her sister, 6-year-old Jalie Brunett, was taken to a Jackson hospital for treatment.

The Jackson police chief said there was evidence of possible human trafficking at the location on Boozier Drive, including small animal cages. Wade said Jackson police have contacted the Human Trafficking Divisions of the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation (MBI) and Hinds County to assess the scene.

Authorities said the Amber Alert was issued for the two girls, who were abducted after their mother was killed in Loranger, Louisiana, on Thursday.

Edwards said 35-year-old Callie Brunett was found dead by her father on the floor of her bedroom inside her locked mobile home on North Cooper Road after having been reported missing by her parents 24 hours earlier. They had last spoken to her Tuesday morning.

Daniel Callihan (Courtesy: Rankin County Sheriff’s Office)
Daniel Callihan captured in Jackson, Miss., on Thursday, June 13, 2024. (Courtesy: Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office)
6-year-old Jalie and 4-year-old Erin Brunett (Courtesy: Louisiana State Police)

Callihan is suspected of killing Callie Brunett. Investigators told the Associated Press the two had dated.

Wade said he did not believe Callihan was the father of the two children. Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey said Callihan is being held in the Rankin County Jail on a courtesy hold.

WJTV 12 News reached out to the FBI in Jackson about the case. They said, “The FBI is dedicating all available resources and tools at its disposal to this investigation, including Victim Services personnel, who are working closely with the survivors of this unspeakable tragedy.”

Anyone with additional information about the incident can contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

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