Number: 2009-11
WHEREAS, Congress has recently passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 economic stimulus legislation, including funding for a wide variety of water resources, energy and transportation and other public works developments and programs; and
WHEREAS, in cases of allocation of stimulus monies for public works projects, the potential exists that poorly directed stimulus or other funding could substantially undermine environmental protections, including hard-fought victories such as defeat of the Yazoo Backwater Pump; and
WHEREAS, Congress has also recently passed the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations legislation, which includes additional funding and earmarks for economically wasteful and environmentally damaging projects, including attempts to move forward with long-controversial Mississippi River Basin projects, such as the vetoed Yazoo Backwater Pump, Upper Mississippi River and Illinois River Navigation Expansion (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin), Grand Prairie Irrigation Demonstration Project (Arkansas), and others; and
WHEREAS, almost immediately the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which received an additional $4.6 billion of stimulus funds, began seeking support for plans to conduct maintenance dredging and channelization of streams in the Upper Yazoo River Basin of the Mississippi Delta, which streams have been among the highest in aquatic biological productivity in the nation, and which activity would reverse natural ecosystem restoration processes and increase the frequency and magnitude of flooding in the lower Mississippi Delta; and
WHEREAS, in August, 2008, after decades of controversy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a Section 404(c) veto of the Corps of Engineers’ Yazoo Backwater Pumping Plant (Mississippi), finally halting a project that has long threatened to damage or destroy as much as 200,000 acres of Mississippi Delta wetlands and habitat; and such veto constitutes a substantial victory for the nation’s environment and for the people of the Mississippi Delta region; and
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation, in annual meeting assembled April 30 – May 2, 2009, in Pittsburgh, PA, hereby calls upon the Administration and Congress to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to cease the planning for or implementation of maintenance dredging and channelization of streams in the Upper Yazoo River Basin of the Mississippi River region; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation also calls upon the Administration and Congress to adhere to existing environmental safeguards and adopt strong criteria and controls on all economic recovery stimulus and other public works spending to avoid continued damage to the environment, waste of public resources, and inappropriate flood plain development, and to assure that such funding supports sustainable protection and restoration of the health and productivity of the nation’s waters ecosystems; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that wherever possible such funding should directly contribute to improvements to the nation’s energy efficiency, the development of renewable resources and the reduction of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.