The Mississippi Levee Board has been granted intervenor status as of right in the case American Rivers et al v. Environmental Protection Agency by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The order recognizes that the Mississippi Levee Board has “a legally protected interest” in the suit seeking a decision on the completion of the Yazoo Backwater Project.
An intervenor can join the side of the plaintiff, defendant, or as adverse to both the plaintiff and defendant. Intervention as of right is when the third party has an unconditional right to enter the litigation based on a statute or when the third party may be bound by the outcome of the case without his interests being adequately represented.
The lawsuit was initially filed by national organizations based outside of Mississippi, seeking to block completion of the Yazoo Backwater Project, a project the Levee Board contends will save lives and protect property, wildlife, trees and the environment in the South Mississippi Delta.
Additionally, the Court granted EPA’s request for remand back to the agency for further consideration, with an obligation to report back to the Court on or before November 22, 2021.
“For 80 years, our community has stood by as the Federal Government has played politics with the completion of the last pumping station on the Mississippi River, enduring devastating flooding nearly every year as a consequence," the Levee Board said in a prepared statement. "In 2019, as floodwaters sat on our properties for more than six months, families living here lost nearly 700 homes—more than 90 percent of which were owned by our Black and Indigenous people of color (BIPOC) neighbors, and many of which remain uninhabitable today.
A study by the Levee Board said 94-percent of the home protected by the completion of the pumps and Yazoo Backwater Project are minority occupied.
"There is no project that better fulfills the goals of environmental justice as prioritized by the Biden Administration and EPA Administrator Michael Regan," said the Levee Board. "American Rivers et al v. EPA seeks to prevent delivering environmental justice to the residents of the South Mississippi Delta.
"While the lives and livelihoods of our neighbors, 62 percent of whom are people of color and 28 percent living below the poverty line, may not be important to American Rivers and other national organizations not based in Mississippi, they are our priority," the statement continued. "We look forward to representing the interests of our community before EPA and in the pending legal action and will continue to advocate for long overdue environmental justice for all who call the South Delta home.”
Mississippi Levee Board Commissioners and their home counties are:
Kenneth Rogers, Humphreys County; Nott Wheeler, Bolivar County; Roy Nichols, Issaquena County; Hank Burdine, Washington County; Paul Hollis, Sharkey County; Katherine Crump, Bolivar County and David Cochran, Washington County.
