Environment
BPF promotes environmental regulatory reform and actively engages the bureaucracy regulating flooding on the Mississippi River. BPF believes mitigating the flooding by using Old River Control Complex would give Mississippians back their privately owned land.
Featured Work
Blissful Ignorance vs Mistakes of Omission
Bigger Pie Forum Projects
Mississippi River Flooding
Consumer Advocate
More Flood for Less Rain
I don’t know who said it first, but the Mississippi River is flooding more often, longer, and higher for the same or less rain. There are many reasons for this. But the main one is the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). It is in charge of flood control on the lower Mississippi River (below Cairo, Illinois). Congress gave it that job after the great 1927 flood disaster — to prevent a repeat.
Wistful Not Thinking
The Mississippi River is going to change course (avulse) to the Atchafalaya at the Old River Control Complex (ORCC) above Baton Rouge and discharge to the Gulf near Morgan City, LA. Gravity will send it down this shorter, steeper path in a big flood — maybe the next one. Course changes happen about every 1,000 years when the channel clogs up with silt, flow slows, and floods get higher. The last one happened around the 12th century.
What About the EPA’s Endangerment Finding?
The EPA’s C02 Endangerment Finding of 2009 is under the gun by President Trump’s current (2025) initiative, “Unleashing American Energy.” Here is a quick timeline of important executive orders issued over the past 15 years to help lay out the landscape for legal battles to come.
Cut To the Chase
The Corps Old River Control Complex (ORCC) near Louisiana’s Angola Prison just south of the Mississippi line makes flooding worse inside the levees. The flooding affects about a half million acres in Mississippi and Louisiana owned by over 500 plaintiffs who sued the Corps in 2019 for taking their properties. I’m one of those plaintiffs. I quit writing about floods when I became one. I’m starting again. I can’t wait on the courts.
Stuck in the Mud on the Mighty Mississippi
Barge shipping on the river, vital to the U.S. economy and especially for midwestern farmers, is grinding to slow motion. Extra costs are growing by the hour. The result will be an inflationary bump to food prices and probably other goods.
Too Many Beaks
A recent report from a competent professional engineer says this about our water system: “… the Jackson system is a ticking bomb poised to cause immeasurable harm to water customers. I have witnessed many water systems in the US and abroad that do not meet US EPA Safe Drinking Water Standards. This is one of the worst for a developed country. There are immediate concerns with the continued operation of the system as it is currently operated but it poses additional harm as microbial and viral contaminates enter the system due to lack of adequate maintenance.”