Thick plastic material used to protect Yazoo Backwater Levee - MSNewsNow.com - Jackson, MS
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is proudly displaying the work that has been done to keep the Yazoo Backwater Levee from breaking.
It's a four mile section of the levee from the Steele Bayou Control Structure to the mainline levee in Issaquena County.
The Yazoo Backwater Levee protects 1.2 million acres of farmland north of Vicksburg from the Yazoo River that is backing up because of the historic levels on the Mississippi.
A polyethylene material used to line garbage dumps has been placed on the levee by 140 people, working in the last week, in an emergency job that cannot exceed $1.1 million dollars in cost.
The chief engineer of the Mississippi Levee Board, Peter Nimrod, believes the material will keep the Yazoo Backwater Levee from breaking even though it will be overtopped.
"We are predicting it will overtop, we think it will overtop just in this four mile stretch, right here from the main line levee to the Steel Bayou Structure, if we don't protect it there is a chance, it would erode away and to so fail, " said Nimrod.
The colonel in charge of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Jeffrey Eckstein, also believes the water will go over the levee.
"We have a full expectation that it will cross the levee, but we just don't know when but it's probably going to be closer to the crest," said Eckstein.
The amazing job of putting the material over 3.5 miles of levee in less than a week was performed by 140 people working for Fordice Construction Company of Vicksburg.
"I am not going to say they made it look easy, but they made it work," said Hunter Fordice, who runs the company with his brother Dan.
Putting this material over the levee is supposed to keep it from breaking when water runs over the top of it as the Mississippi River keeps rising.
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