WELCOME!
Thanks for visiting our website, now beginning to contain a little more information. Click on the newsletters tab above to download past issues of our newsletter. We've just added a section featuring documents related to the Kmart suit against Kroger, FEMA and the City of Corinth- check out the tab at the top of the page and tabs under it for photos, maps and weather data . Since this is very much about flooding and drainage in Corinth, I think everyone should be able to see what's going on and that's what this website is all about.
A SHORT HISTORY OF FLOODING AND DRAINAGE IN
CORINTH, MISSISSIPPI
In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. Some earth was covered in water and some was dry. In prehistoric times, the area we live in was first covered with water, a part of the Gulf of Mexico, and then became dry. Since then it has swung back and forth, depending on the rainfall and the condition of drainage systems.
Archaeologists tell us that all of the land where we live was once occupied for thousands of years by prehistoric people of whom we know relatively little. Most artifacts deteriorate rapidly in an environment that swings between wet and dry. Most recently the Chickasaw Indians inhabited this area and were forced to leave by coercion, persecution and other pressure starting around 1832.
The Government of the United States sold the lands acquired from the Chickasaws to private parties including large numbers of speculators. In the ensuing years, various state and local government bodies spent resources trying to protect the lands sold to private parties from flooding which occurred regularly throughout the ensuing years. The Federal Government pretty resolutely refused to get involved in flood prevention efforts, deferring this to a state and local issue.
On September 17, 1850, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the second Swamp Land Act by a wide margin of 120-53. The law ceded to certain states including Mississippi "the whole of those swamp and overflowed lands, made unfit thereby for cultivation " on the condition the state "exclusively" dedicate the revenue from the sale of those lands to building drainage projects. The intent was that citizens of the state would never again have to bear responsibility for draining wetlands or building levees.
As with a lot of Federal Government programs, things didn't work out as planned. Graft and corruption were the most lasting sordid historical track record of this Act.
In the late 1800's a great number of desperate landowners convinced the state legislature to enable property owners to form drainage districts to finance, build and tax themselves to pay for improvements to drainage on their lands. In Alcorn County, there were 18 drainage districts organized and 119 miles of drainage canals constructed from around 1906-1930. In Alcorn County, most of the work seemed to be designed and engineered well, completed, and debt paid off. In many other areas of the state, this was not always the case. Graft, corruption, bank failures, and defaults on debt were widespread.
Fast forward to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. The Federal Government reluctantly again began to deal with flooding and drainage as a national issue. Most efforts were delayed, however, by the Great Depression and WWII. In the 1950's, efforts began again by the Federal Government to fix flooding once and for all. The effort was largely split between the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers for levees and the U.S.Dept. of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service as far as drainage.
The Soil Conservation Service took the approach of working only on a comprehensive basis on "watersheds". The Soil Conservation Service seemed to distance itself from the earlier drainage district work and in the late 1950's in Alcorn County started a new drainage district - the Tuscumbia Water Management District - to cover the entire Tuscumbia River Watershed and encompass most of the areas originally part of the 18 previous drainage districts. Over a period of the next 15 years or so, the SCS refined a plan to build a series of 24 watershed lakes to retain the flow of water and reduce the incidence of flooding. The Tuscumbia Water Management District committed to a portion of the cost by collecting drainage taxes from all properties within the county that would be benefited from this plan and the SCS committed to the balance. Only ten of the lakes got built, very little of the channel improvements were ever completed, and protests and political pressure ended the drainage taxes after 40 years.
The City of Corinth was a sponsor of this plan. Two of the promised watershed lakes were located on Phillips and Bridge Creeks and would have benefited the City of Corinth. Elam Creek within the City of Corinth was supposed to be "improved". The only thing property owners within the City of Corinth ever received were the bills for Tuscumbia Water Management drainage taxes for 40 years.
The two areas for watershed retention lakes on Phillips and Bridge Creek have largely now been developed and would be difficult to complete today. The Elam Creek watershed was from the late 1800's to the 1950's the location for a rather thriving brick manufacturing business. At that time Elam Creek had a series of natural retention areas consisting of depleted clay pits which became lakes and ponds that were known locally as good bass fishing spots. Beginning in the mid-1940's and continuing into the 1970's, the City of Corinth filled in these former clay pits as dumps for garbage and industrial refuse. Some believe that the increased flooding in the Elam Creek area beginning in the 1970's can be attributed to these clay pits being converted from water retention areas to areas facilitating increased storm water runoff.
Now we arrive at the most recent part of this story. The Federal Government finally decided it was impossible to stop flooding. The only thing that could be done was to decide where floods were going to occur and prevent people from putting things where they would be destroyed. The only problem was the Federal Government gave much of the land to the States many years ago, the States encouraged people to buy the land, develop it, invest in it- now the Government wanted to effectively take it back or at a minimum reduce its value greatly by prohibiting any development thereon.
How to do that? Well, a rather ingenious scheme was hatched. The Federal Government convinced State and Local governments to start restrictively regulating land under local laws in the mid to late 1970's preventing new development which could result in increased future flood damage. As a carrot to the local governments, National Flood Insurance would only be provided to those communities which signed this agreement.
As a token break to those property owners already in areas that were known to be subject to flooding sooner or later, subsidized rates were given to structures built "pre-Firm" before the adoption of flood plain regulations regardless of their elevations. The hope would be that these structures would decay and implode on their own without cost to the flood insurance program. Local governments would then prevent them from being rebuilt or redeveloped as part of the new restrictive floodplain regulation. In every case, this program is designed to place any blame and responsibility for taking existing property rights away squarely on State and local officials. Over time, this scheme was to reduce damage from flooding in somebody's lifetime. As a practical matter, if it had been enforced, it probably would have worked as planned and gradually reduced flooding damage.
The only fly in the ointment to this scheme is that in most cases, state and local governments didn't have a clue what they were agreeing to, paid little attention to restricting development, and in most cases were themselves the worst violators when it came to ignoring flood plain regulations. State and local governments historically are responsive to local voters and would rather "eat a bug" than make voters unhappy. Taking away property rights is a guaranteed surefire way to make a property owner unhappy. FEMA has also conveniently never checked up on how things were going for around 40 years in the City of Corinth.
In the 1960's Corinth became a model city for Urban Renewal and other Federal programs in the state of Mississippi. Drainage did not appear to be an issue during much of the planning for the work and grants done during that time. Two factors seemed to be at play. First, the city signed on with the Tuscumbia Water Management District which was supposed to be solving flooding problems in the county and presumably would look after the city. Second, much of the land within the city and surrounding it had been part of an agricultural economy until the early 1960's.
In the transition from agricultural economy to residential and industrial development, the landowners knowledge of and responsibility for drainage matters fell by the wayside. Most of the drainage commissioners for the original drainage districts died and their knowledge was forgotten. Everyone pretty much trusted that the Federal Government thru the SCS (now NRCS) and the Tuscumbia Water Management District would take care of the City of Corinth's drainage problems.
Which brings us up to today. The question of what is causing the repeated and increasing flooding in Corinth has never come up before, at least in court. FEMA is a part of the law suit brought by Kmart against the City of Corinth. We'll see what if any of these issues or this history are brought up or resolved in that case.
We are glad you've come to visit our website. Look around for information on how we are working to solve drainage and flooding problems in Corinth, Mississippi.
© Milton Sandy, Jr. 10/19/2011
Archaeologists tell us that all of the land where we live was once occupied for thousands of years by prehistoric people of whom we know relatively little. Most artifacts deteriorate rapidly in an environment that swings between wet and dry. Most recently the Chickasaw Indians inhabited this area and were forced to leave by coercion, persecution and other pressure starting around 1832.
The Government of the United States sold the lands acquired from the Chickasaws to private parties including large numbers of speculators. In the ensuing years, various state and local government bodies spent resources trying to protect the lands sold to private parties from flooding which occurred regularly throughout the ensuing years. The Federal Government pretty resolutely refused to get involved in flood prevention efforts, deferring this to a state and local issue.
On September 17, 1850, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the second Swamp Land Act by a wide margin of 120-53. The law ceded to certain states including Mississippi "the whole of those swamp and overflowed lands, made unfit thereby for cultivation " on the condition the state "exclusively" dedicate the revenue from the sale of those lands to building drainage projects. The intent was that citizens of the state would never again have to bear responsibility for draining wetlands or building levees.
As with a lot of Federal Government programs, things didn't work out as planned. Graft and corruption were the most lasting sordid historical track record of this Act.
In the late 1800's a great number of desperate landowners convinced the state legislature to enable property owners to form drainage districts to finance, build and tax themselves to pay for improvements to drainage on their lands. In Alcorn County, there were 18 drainage districts organized and 119 miles of drainage canals constructed from around 1906-1930. In Alcorn County, most of the work seemed to be designed and engineered well, completed, and debt paid off. In many other areas of the state, this was not always the case. Graft, corruption, bank failures, and defaults on debt were widespread.
Fast forward to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. The Federal Government reluctantly again began to deal with flooding and drainage as a national issue. Most efforts were delayed, however, by the Great Depression and WWII. In the 1950's, efforts began again by the Federal Government to fix flooding once and for all. The effort was largely split between the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers for levees and the U.S.Dept. of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service as far as drainage.
The Soil Conservation Service took the approach of working only on a comprehensive basis on "watersheds". The Soil Conservation Service seemed to distance itself from the earlier drainage district work and in the late 1950's in Alcorn County started a new drainage district - the Tuscumbia Water Management District - to cover the entire Tuscumbia River Watershed and encompass most of the areas originally part of the 18 previous drainage districts. Over a period of the next 15 years or so, the SCS refined a plan to build a series of 24 watershed lakes to retain the flow of water and reduce the incidence of flooding. The Tuscumbia Water Management District committed to a portion of the cost by collecting drainage taxes from all properties within the county that would be benefited from this plan and the SCS committed to the balance. Only ten of the lakes got built, very little of the channel improvements were ever completed, and protests and political pressure ended the drainage taxes after 40 years.
The City of Corinth was a sponsor of this plan. Two of the promised watershed lakes were located on Phillips and Bridge Creeks and would have benefited the City of Corinth. Elam Creek within the City of Corinth was supposed to be "improved". The only thing property owners within the City of Corinth ever received were the bills for Tuscumbia Water Management drainage taxes for 40 years.
The two areas for watershed retention lakes on Phillips and Bridge Creek have largely now been developed and would be difficult to complete today. The Elam Creek watershed was from the late 1800's to the 1950's the location for a rather thriving brick manufacturing business. At that time Elam Creek had a series of natural retention areas consisting of depleted clay pits which became lakes and ponds that were known locally as good bass fishing spots. Beginning in the mid-1940's and continuing into the 1970's, the City of Corinth filled in these former clay pits as dumps for garbage and industrial refuse. Some believe that the increased flooding in the Elam Creek area beginning in the 1970's can be attributed to these clay pits being converted from water retention areas to areas facilitating increased storm water runoff.
Now we arrive at the most recent part of this story. The Federal Government finally decided it was impossible to stop flooding. The only thing that could be done was to decide where floods were going to occur and prevent people from putting things where they would be destroyed. The only problem was the Federal Government gave much of the land to the States many years ago, the States encouraged people to buy the land, develop it, invest in it- now the Government wanted to effectively take it back or at a minimum reduce its value greatly by prohibiting any development thereon.
How to do that? Well, a rather ingenious scheme was hatched. The Federal Government convinced State and Local governments to start restrictively regulating land under local laws in the mid to late 1970's preventing new development which could result in increased future flood damage. As a carrot to the local governments, National Flood Insurance would only be provided to those communities which signed this agreement.
As a token break to those property owners already in areas that were known to be subject to flooding sooner or later, subsidized rates were given to structures built "pre-Firm" before the adoption of flood plain regulations regardless of their elevations. The hope would be that these structures would decay and implode on their own without cost to the flood insurance program. Local governments would then prevent them from being rebuilt or redeveloped as part of the new restrictive floodplain regulation. In every case, this program is designed to place any blame and responsibility for taking existing property rights away squarely on State and local officials. Over time, this scheme was to reduce damage from flooding in somebody's lifetime. As a practical matter, if it had been enforced, it probably would have worked as planned and gradually reduced flooding damage.
The only fly in the ointment to this scheme is that in most cases, state and local governments didn't have a clue what they were agreeing to, paid little attention to restricting development, and in most cases were themselves the worst violators when it came to ignoring flood plain regulations. State and local governments historically are responsive to local voters and would rather "eat a bug" than make voters unhappy. Taking away property rights is a guaranteed surefire way to make a property owner unhappy. FEMA has also conveniently never checked up on how things were going for around 40 years in the City of Corinth.
In the 1960's Corinth became a model city for Urban Renewal and other Federal programs in the state of Mississippi. Drainage did not appear to be an issue during much of the planning for the work and grants done during that time. Two factors seemed to be at play. First, the city signed on with the Tuscumbia Water Management District which was supposed to be solving flooding problems in the county and presumably would look after the city. Second, much of the land within the city and surrounding it had been part of an agricultural economy until the early 1960's.
In the transition from agricultural economy to residential and industrial development, the landowners knowledge of and responsibility for drainage matters fell by the wayside. Most of the drainage commissioners for the original drainage districts died and their knowledge was forgotten. Everyone pretty much trusted that the Federal Government thru the SCS (now NRCS) and the Tuscumbia Water Management District would take care of the City of Corinth's drainage problems.
Which brings us up to today. The question of what is causing the repeated and increasing flooding in Corinth has never come up before, at least in court. FEMA is a part of the law suit brought by Kmart against the City of Corinth. We'll see what if any of these issues or this history are brought up or resolved in that case.
We are glad you've come to visit our website. Look around for information on how we are working to solve drainage and flooding problems in Corinth, Mississippi.
© Milton Sandy, Jr. 10/19/2011
Hot off the presses!
Earlier this year, we published all our 2010 newsletters in a consolidated book on Lulu.com. Individual newsletters are still available online by clicking the newsletter tab above and the 2010 section underneath it. You can order the collection in a perfect bound book for $39.95 (its a little pricey because of the color printing) just by double clicking on the book image below. Or- you can download the complete publication in pdf format (with index) and print it yourself for free (After clicking on the book image below, follow the link to Visit this author's spotlight to find the free pdf download option).
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