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Topic: Big Sunflower River

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	Green Scissors Big Sunflower River "Maintenance" and Yazoo Pumps Project
		The $62.5 million Big Sunflower River "Maintenance" project and the proposed $191 million Yazoo Backwater Pumps are designed to speed drainage of floodwaters in areas with low-lying agricultural land.
		The re-suspension of DDT and toxaphene-contaminated sediment caused by dredging the Big Sunflower River would be a health risk to the subsistence, commercial and recreational anglers that fish the Big Sunflower and connected rivers.
		Dredging the River also would devastate the river's instream habitat, destroy at least 43 percent of the river's abundant mussel beds, and damage more than 3,600 acres of wetlands that are also in harm's way from the Pumps.
	www.greenscissors.org /water/bigsunflower.htm (867 words)

	Untitled Document
		Construction of the Big Sunflower River and Tributaries Project was initiated in the late 1940's and completed in the 1960's.
		It is interesting to note that the highest concentration of mussels currently found in the Big Sunflower River are located in reaches that had been modified during the original project through channel excavation, which re-moved sediment and provided a firmer bot-tom for better mussel recruitment.
		The National Wildlife Federation challenged the Big Sunflower River Maintenance Project in the Federal District Court of Washington, D.C., contending that cost sharing should apply to the work and that the Corps of Engineers had failed to meet the requirements of NEPA by not adequately considering a non-structural alternative to the project.
	www.msleveeboard.com /www.msleveeboard.com/big.html (1667 words)

	Spokane River - 6th Most Endangered River of 2004
		American Rivers is dedicated to protecting and restoring healthy natural rivers, and the variety of life they sustain, for the benefit of people, fish and wildlife.
		Today, the Spokane River is a vital part of the quality of life in its namesake city, offering riverfront trails and parks, a prized trout fishery, whitewater recreation and dramatic, natural scenery.
		The river's capacity for handling sewage is already over the limits and municipal and industrial polluters are going to have to ratchet back on their existing discharges.
	www.waterplanet.ws /endangeredriver (1969 words)

	Quapaw Canoe Company (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The river is about the size of the Sunflower I live on 200 miles upstream in Clarksdale, and flowing about the same speed it does when the upper Sunflower has received a big rainstorm, maybe 800 - 1,000 cfs.
		The White River in Arkansas, the Red of Louisiana, the Big Sunflower of Mississippi.
		There is no dress code, but when on the river, you will be expected to wear a life jacket and to carry a survival kit (a fanny pack makes a great way to carry your survival kit), as well as to carry clothing appropriate to possible bad weather.
	www.island63.com /article.cfm (5816 words)

	TLPJ - Press - Big Sunflower River Basin - Nov. 5, 1998
		The Big Sunflower and its tributaries comprise one of the few remaining river systems in the Mississippi Delta not severely altered by flood control projects.
		Corps officials claim that their plans are exempt from the 1986 law because the project amounts to nothing more than "maintenance" on a 14-mile stretch of the Big Sunflower that was originally authorized for dredging in 1944.
		The Big Sunflower River dredging, if completed as planned, would deliver more floodwater into the lower Yazoo basin, creating more justification for the Yazoo pump and resulting in the drainage and destruction of hundreds of thousands of additional acres of wetlands.
	www.tlpj.org /pr/sunfpr.htm (923 words)

	CBSnews.com (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The Big Sunflower is the largest of four rivers that twist through a sparsely populated region of Mississippi known as the Yazoo Backwater Area.
		The river is home to one of the most abundant native mussel beds in the world and some 55 species of fish.
		American Rivers says this plan would drain the wetlands around the river that are an important destination for wintering waterfowl and are vital to a host of other wildlife.
	www.cbsnews.com /htdocs/environment/rivers/rivers_sunflower.html (133 words)

	TLPJ - Briefs - Nat'l Wildlife Fed. v. Westphal - Nov. 5, 1998
		When the Big Sunflower River was dredged in the 1950's and 60's, dredging only occurred on approximately 12 miles.
		Clearing and snagging involves removing the woody vegetation in the river channel and the trees along the banks of the river.
		The Big Sunflower River is relatively isolated from this invasion and may prove valuable in providing "seed stock" for possible future restoration efforts.
	www.tlpj.org /briefs/sunflow.htm (4515 words)

	Diverted, Polluted, Dammed: America's Rivers in Jeopardy
		The Missouri River reservoir system is the largest in the United States with a storage capacity of 74 million acre feet and a surface area exceeding one million acres.
		The Missouri River ecosystem is in "a serious state of decline," and the ecosystem faces the prospect of "irreversible extinction of species," the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences reported in January.
		Klamath River, California and Oregon, water supply and quality In the drought prone headwaters of the Klamath River, the Bureau of Reclamation is attempting to maximize irrigation deliveries even though the diversions and polluted agricultural runoff are causing the river's ecosystem to collapse.
	www.ens-newswire.com /ens/apr2002/2002-04-02-02.asp (1264 words)

	Supreme Court Decision (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The Big Sunflower River Maintenance Project is a channeling project proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers to alleviate seasonal flooding in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta.
		The Big Sunflower River Maintenance Project was developed to alleviate nuisance headwater flooding that occurs approximately every one to five years in the Big Sunflower River Basin of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta.
		Evidence was presented (cross sections of the river beds from then and now) that the depth of the channels, bank width, bank height, etc. are substantially the same as they were in the 1940's.
	www.deltalandtrust.org /supreme_court.html (4555 words)

	Big Sur. The Columbia Gazetteer of North America. 2000
		Big Sur (SUHR), village, Monterey co., W Calif., 25 mi/40 km S of Monterey, 2 mi/3.2 km NE from Pacific Ocean coast, and on Big Sur R., a short stream in Santa Lucia Range.
		Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park (843 acres/341 ha) to SE, with recreational facilities.
		Scenic Big Sur coastal drive (State Highway 1); Los Padres Natl.
	www.bartleby.com /69/36/B06236.html (117 words)

	Troubled Waters Top 10: Big Sunflower River Dredging and Yazoo Pump (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The $62.5 million Big Sunflower River Maintenance project and $165 million Yazoo Backwater Pumping Station are part of a Corps plan to replumb the Mississippi River Delta through a series of water diversions and channelizations.
		The Big Sunflower "maintenance" project includes dredging virtually the entire width of the river for 104 miles, and is designed to shunt water downstream and reduce seasonal flooding by a few inches.
		The river itself houses a thousand-year-old colony of mussels, thought to be the densest mass of life in the world.
	www.taxpayer.net /corpswatch/troubledwaters/projects/sunflower-yazoo.htm (443 words)

	Klamath River worries on rise / Conservationists decry low-flow plan
		Steve Rothert, an associate director for American Rivers, said the decision was motivated by the increasing threat faced by the Klamath's fisheries from the low flows mandated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
		American Rivers evaluates the state of the nation's major rivers annually, compiling a list of the 10 most threatened by pollution, dams, water diversions or development.
		The Big Sunflower River in Mississippi is identified by the group as the nation's most imperiled river.
	www.sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/10/BA262434.DTL&type=printable (364 words)

	Colorado River tops 2004 list of endangered rivers
		The river wanders 1,500 miles from the peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, snaking across Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California before flowing into the Gulf of Baja in Mexico, although in most years it is little more than a trickle when it reaches its delta.
		The Big Sunflower River in Mississippi, which was the most endangered river last year because of an Army Corps of Engineers pumping and dredging project that the group said would destroy wetlands and stir up toxins in the river bed, was No. 2 on the group's list.
		American Rivers, a Washington-based nonprofit conservation group, says the rivers on the list are not necessarily the ones with the worst chronic problems, but those they say are most in peril because of toxic chemicals, severe water shortages and other problems.
	www.uswaternews.com /archives/arcquality/4colorive5.html (443 words)

	Corps of Engineers’ Big Sunflower River Dredging and Yazoo Backwater Pump Projects a Threat to Waterfowl Hunters and ...
		Like many Corps of Engineers projects across the nation, the Big Sunflower River Dredging and Yazoo Backwater Pump projects are taking a serious toll on thousands of acres of some of the nation’s richest wildlife habitat prized by waterfowl hunters.
		In the case of the Big Sunflower River Dredging and Yazoo Backwater Pump projects, the Corps is severely impacting hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands upon which many of the nation’s migratory waterfowl, including over-wintering mallards depend, as well as 43 percent of the river’s rich mussel beds.
		The $62 million Big Sunflower River “maintenance” project will dredge almost the entire width of the river for 104 miles, purportedly to reduce flooding on sparsely populated marginal farmland.
	www.nwf.org /news/story.cfm?pageId=7909AB6C-65BF-09FE-B007E8499E2D06F2 (660 words)

	Untitled Document
		As the Mississippi River moves toward the Gulf of Mexico, it divides its flood plain into a number of large basins, each bounded on one side by the bluff of the valley wall and on the other by the high ridges or natural levees of the river itself.
		The efforts to contain flooding from the Mississippi River and from interior streams has been and continues to be the responsibility of the region's elected levee boards.
		For well over the first 100 years, all flood control efforts were paid for at first by the river front land owner, then the river front counties and then by funds raised by local levee boards.
	www.msleveeboard.com /www.msleveeboard.com/history.html (1326 words)

	ESPN.com - Fishing & Politics
		Upper Mississippi River Navigation Expansion: The Corps continues to exaggerate future barge traffic on the upper Mississippi River in order to justify this $2.3 billion project, which will damage efforts to restore habitat for bass and other species.
		Missouri River Navigation: To accommodate a trickle of barge traffic, the river's natural pattern of high spring flows and low summer flows have been replaced with stable flows, threatening fish and wildlife.
		Big Sunflower River Dredging and Yazoo Backwater Pump: The Corps plans to construct the world's largest hydraulic pump in Mississippi the Yazoo Pump — that would dredge the Big Sunflower River.
	sports.espn.go.com /espn/print?id=1927215&type=story (286 words)

	Environmental Defense (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The Corps has proposed a $62 million project to dredge and clear snags from more than 133 miles of the Big Sunflower River in Mississippi, destroying commercially-important mussel beds and thousands of acres of bottomland hardwood wetlands.
		The Corps considers dredging the Big Sunflower a "maintenance" project even though the project extends the scope of the original project, which was only 14 miles.
		Dredging and clearing the Big Sunflower could release DDT trapped in the river's sediments.
	www.environmentaldefense.org /documents/586_SunDredging.html (109 words)

	ITD Transporter
		WASHINGTON D.C. – America's rivers and streams are becoming more polluted – and the White House and Congress are making a bad situation worse by cutting clean water law enforcement and spending on pollution prevention, charged American Rivers with the release of its 2004 Most Endangered Rivers report.
		Dams on the Columbia and lower Snake rivers have caused dramatic declines in the Snake River's once abundant wild salmon population, with all the river's runs either extinct or sliding toward extinction.
		Phosphate mining in the Peace River watershed has been the source of serious environmental problems for many years, and large new mines are planned.
	www.itd.idaho.gov /Transporter/2004/041604_Trans/041604_BadRivers.html (1146 words)

	American Rivers: Mississippi's Big Sunflower River "Most Endangered"
		This dredging would devastate the river's instream habitat, destroy at least 43 percent of the river's extremely rich mussel beds, and damage more than 3,600 acres of wetlands that are also in harm's way from the Pumps.
		The dredging also would stir up a toxic stew of pesticides that have accumulated at the bottom of the river, including DDT and toxaphene, endangering the health of local residents who eat fish caught from the river.
		While the situation along the Big Sunflower River is particularly urgent, it is sadly far from unique.
	www.americanrivers.org /site/News2?JServSessionIdr011=v2s7u3sh41.app14a&abbr=AMR_&page=NewsArticle&id=6700&news_iv_ctrl=-1 (818 words)

	Uranium Waste Pile Makes Colorado River Most Endangered
		Someday a big flood like those that raged through these canyons in the 19th century is going to lift that pile into the river and irradiate Canyonlands National Park.
		Of equal concern to American Rivers are the rising predictions for human waste reaching the river from riverfront boomtowns in California and Arizona.
		Dams on the Columbia and lower Snake rivers have caused steep declines in the Snake River's once abundant wild salmon population, with all the river's runs either extinct or sliding toward extinction.
	www.ens-newswire.com /ens/apr2004/2004-04-14-01.asp (1616 words)

	Dubious Days in the Delta - National Wildlife Magazine
		While the Army Corps is pushing ahead with the dredging of the Big Sunflower, critics of both plans question whether U.S. taxpayers should have to pay for projects that will benefit only a small number of local landowners while destroying precious natural resources.
		A biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Mississippi, he notes that "the mussel beds in the Big Sunflower River represent probably the densest accumulation of biomass anywhere in the world." As much as 100 pounds of mussels can be found in a square meter of river bottom.
		In the case of the Big Sunflower, the Corps maintains that its plans are exempt from this 1986 law because the project amounts to nothing more than "maintenance" on a portion of the river that was authorized for dredging by Congress in 1944.
	www.nwf.org /nationalwildlife/article.cfm?issueID=22&articleID=186 (1566 words)

	2/4/2002 - Water Conserve: Troubled waters, Klamath River called nation's third most endangered (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The Klamath River, a flash point of bitter fighting between farmers and environmentalists during the past year, has been named America's third most endangered river in an annual report issued by a prominent conservation group.
		American Rivers named the Klamath -- which flows through Oregon and California -- as one of the nation's 11 most endangered rivers after a decision by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to reduce downstream flows to provide irrigation water to the Klamath Basin's farmers.
		The Missouri was cited for the deleterious effect of the dams and reservoirs along its length, and the Big Sunflower for projects planned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that could dredge the center of the river and destroy adjoining wetlands.
	www.waterconserve.info /articles/reader.asp?linkid=9570 (688 words)

	News: America's Most Endangered Rivers of 2003
		Mississippi's Big Sunflower River is threatened by a pair of misbegotten flood control projects cooked up by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and rashly supported by its Congressional patrons.
		The federal Bureau of Reclamation is irresponsibly maximizing irrigation in the Klamath River basin, depleting the river and wreaking havoc on imperiled wildlife, imposing tremendous hardships on Native American and fishing communities.
		The fate of the Snake River and its wild salmon runs is increasingly in doubt as federal efforts to recover the imperiled fish falter and hydropower operators put short-term revenues ahead of salmon protection.
	www.paddling.net /articles/news2.html (834 words)

	Klamath River rises on endangered list - April 11, 2003
		The Klamath River system is endangered because of excessive irrigation diversions and hydropower dams that are causing an ecological collapse, said Steve Rothert, an associate director with the American Rivers office in Northern California.
		The problems facing the river also have a direct impact on the region’s recreational economy, said Ashland resident Larry Laitner, a member of the Riverhawks recreational group.
		Those concerned about the river’s health are studying the impact of the six dams in the river system, Rothert said.
	www.mailtribune.com /archive/2003/0411/local/stories/02local.htm (737 words)

	(4/30/2003) Water Demands Draining U.S. Rivers, Report Says
		This has created a direct threat to the Platte River, which is on the endangered list, and threatens to undermine an agreement to secure adequate flows in the Platte River and to protect its adjacent wetlands.
		The Platte River, which runs through Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska, is considered by conservationists to be the most important stopover for migratory birds in the nation's heartland.
		The other rivers on the list are Colorado's Gunnison River, which is burdened by unnatural water flows, along with the Snake River and Georgia's Tallapoosa River, which are both threatened by impacts from dams, and the Trinity River in Texas, which could be severely affected by planned flood control and floodplain projects.
	www.monitor.net /monitor/0305a/riversrundry.html (1231 words)

	USATODAY.com - Missouri River named most endangered — again (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The annual report released Tuesday by Washington-based American Rivers had the Missouri at the top of its list, followed by the Big Sunflower River in Mississippi, the Klamath River in Oregon and California, the Kansas River in Kansas and the White River in Arkansas and Missouri.
		The Missouri is the nation's longest river, originating in southwestern Montana and flowing into the Mississippi at St. Louis.
		Even if barge traffic was halted altogether, "the river would not significantly change because the channelizing and the control structures would remain in place for flood control," Johnston said.
	www.usatoday.com /news/nation/2002/04/02/mo-river.htm (561 words)

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