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

Whistling Past Mudberg

by Kelley Williams

Published June 15, 2026

In 1950, the Corps of Engineers told Congress that when the Mississippi River is high, part of it flows down the Atchafalaya River at the juncture of an old river bed — and that it would all flow that way by 1975. That would be a catastrophe for people, cities, and plants at and below Baton Rouge on the Mississippi and in the Atchafalaya basin and for the nation’s river commerce and national security.

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MS River Coarse Change Poster by Dr. Y. Jun Xu – Hydrologist for LSU

By The BPF Editorial Board | March 22, 2018

What would happen if the Mississippi River changed its coarse to the Atchafalaya? Dr. Xu’s poster gives an in-depth look at the MS River’s history, likelihood of a coarse change and the consequences.

Flood Control Madness

By Kelley Williams | March 20, 2018

Have flood control projects actually made flooding worse? Yes. Floods are higher, longer, and more frequent than ever. Despite the Corps’ Mississippi Rivers and Tributaries Project authorized in 1928. Which the Corps says has prevented a trillion dollars of flood damage from levee failures that haven’t happened.

Another Stacked Deck: The Yazoo Backwater Pumps Project

By Kelley Williams | February 20, 2018

So you want to bet against the Mississippi River?

Growing Concern about Mississippi River Course Change

By Kelley Williams | February 6, 2018

That’s the subject of a recent article in The Advocate of Baton Rouge and also a similar recent article in The Times Picayune of New Orleans. It’s also something we have been talking about and testifying about before the Mississippi River Commission for the last two years.

The Undead Yazoo Backwater Pumps Project

By Kelley Williams | December 15, 2017

Its tomb was sealed over in 2012 when the Fifth Circuit upheld the District Court decision against the Mississippi Levee Board’s challenge to the EPA ruling. But a bony hand is emerging from the tomb.