Mississippi's Hancock County opposes Mid-Breton Sediment Diversion

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The Hancock County Board of Supervisors this week launched a new strategy opposing the proposed $800 million Mid-Breton Sediment Diversion, calling it a threat to the Mississippi county’s fisheries resources and recreational and economic development future.

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The board on Monday adopted a resolution asking Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant to oppose federal permits that Louisiana needs from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build the diversion on the east bank of the Mississippi River at Will’s Point in Plaquemines Parish.

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But the county supervisors contend that if the diversion had been flowing at its proposed maximum during all of this year’s unusually long high-water period, it would have had an effect just as damaging to fisheries as the opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway, which has been blamed for killing oysters in Louisiana and Mississippi coastal waters, disrupting commercial fishery catches, and contributing to the killing of hundreds of bottlenose dolphins.

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The resolution pointed out that the spillway poured an estimated 10 trillion gallons of Mississippi River water into Lake Pontchartrain over 123 days this year. It estimated that based on an “operating regime” submitted by the CPRA as part of its permit request to the Corps, the Mid-Breton diversion could have been allowed to stay open at its 75,000-cubic-feet-per-second maximum for more than 200 days between January and July, releasing 9.74 trillion gallons of water into Breton Sound.

Much of that water could reach Chandeleur Sound, the Biloxi Marsh area and the Mississippi Sound, the resolution said, and could cause damage to wildlife resources similar to those caused by the Bonnet Carre diversion opening.

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