NEW ORLEANS GROUP, SIERRA CLUB, DELTA CHAPTER ANNOUNCES A SPECIAL PUBLIC PRESENTATION
Sunday, November 13 2022
The Risks of Pearl River’s ‘One Lake Project’
By Andrew Whitehurst
November 13th, 2022
PRESENTATION from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM, also available on Zoom (Free and available to all)
Andrew Whitehurst is the Water Program Director of Healthy Gulf. He works to develop and implement healthy waters campaigns in Mississippi, as well as advances the organization’s public policy positions through administrative comment writing, public education, and mobilization. He also is on the Board of Directors of Pearl Riverkeeper, Mississippi’s only affiliate of the Waterkeeper Alliance.
He is a New Orleans native, and in 1982, he earned his B.A. in English from LSU. Additionally, he earned a Master’s Degree in Wildlife Ecology from Mississippi State University in 1990 and his J.D. from LSU Law School in 1997. He has worked for Healthy Gulf for 11 years, covering the work of the Clean Water Act in Mississippi. Since 2017, he has also been covering wetland issues in the Florida Parishes of Louisiana.
For his presentation, Andrew will brief us on the Pearl River “One Lake Project,” a plan for flood reduction that would impound a 1,500-acre lake in Jackson, MS – which is seven miles downstream of the Ross Barnett Reservoir. This would dredge and fill 1,864 acres of wetlands and turn 10 miles of river into a wider, deeper, and slower moving channel – a lake with islands – which would disrupt or destroy habitats for two threatened, ESA-protected species. This would also open batture floodplain land for economic development in the cities of Jackson and Flowood, MS, as the Pearl River is flanked by these cities and bisects Hinds (West Bank) and Rankin (East Bank) counties. He will also discuss the progress of the project’s EIS and Feasibility Study in the Army Corps review process, as well as discuss opportunities for engagement.
Location:
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans 5212 South Claiborne Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70115. Enter by sidedoor on Soniat St.
Zoom Link Information
Time: Nov 13, 2022 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting
https://tulane.zoom.us/j/95271928241
Meeting ID: 952 7192 8241
One tap mobile
+16469313860,,95271928241# US +13017158592,,95271928241# US
(Washington DC)
Contact the event organizers: Volunteer & Continuing Education Committee