Despite claims to the contrary, the Big Sand Drainage District appears to be on the hook for maintenance and repair of many Carroll County dams.
Repeatedly over the last several years, some Carroll County residents have expressed concern about the condition of several levees and dams that slow the flow of water from the hills into the Delta and control seasonal flooding.
According to Carroll County residents, the local branch of the National Resources Conservation Service and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, responsibility for these particular dams lies with the Big Sand Drainage District. However, the district board denies that dam maintenance falls within its mandate.
There are 123 dams in Carroll County, 68 of which hold back enough water to do significant damage to surrounding areas should they fail.
Carroll County residents Harmon Stanford and Terry Herbert say that if one of the larger dams were to suddenly give way – something known as a catastrophic failure – sections of Carrollton would flood badly.
“A lot of them are in danger of failing,” says Herbert, a Carroll County supervisor. “There are going to be some lives lost.”
Stanford, a founder of both Carroll Academy and Citizens for Equitable Taxes, is particularly worried about Walker Dam, located a few miles to the northeast of Carrollton on County Road 77.
An MDEQ map shows the projected path that water would take if the Walker Dam floodgates were opened under normal circumstances.
Stanford worries that the affected area would be much larger in the event of a sudden breach and that Marshall Elementary School, which already lies near the river, would be lost. He said Walker Lake should be drained before the winter rains come and left dry for the next few years while repairs take place.
Dusty Myers, a spokesperson MDEQ’s Dam Safety Division, said the MDEQ was more reserved in its assessment, saying that the dams were “in general not in the greatest of shape.”
Myers said the biggest problem is a lack of maintenance on emergency spillways, many of which are overgrown with trees. Water seepage has been reported at some dams, including Walker.
Stanford said that the Big Sand Drainage District has not done enough to address the situation. “If that lake blows out and kills people, they would probably go to prison,” he said.
Stanford and Herbert maintain that after the NRCS completed the dams, they were turned over to the care of the drainage districts, of which there are several in the county.
However, the drainage district board denies that the dams fall within its mandate — and members say that even if they did, the board lacks the resources to repair them.
According to board member Charlie Montgomery Jr., the district was founded to maintain a specific set of drainage ditches, most of which are in the Delta, not the hills, for “public health and agricultural purposes.”
The current board consists of farmers Clint White and Harry Lott as well as Montgomery, a Realtor whose father was on the board for many years before retiring. All three joined the board a little over a year ago.
Tom Flanagan serves as the board’s attorney.
“We’ve met a few times,” said Montgomery. “We’re trying to figure out what our duties are.”
Montgomery and Flanagan say that one reason that the board’s responsibilities are unclear to its current members is recent turnover.
Aside from Charlie Montgomery Sr., most of the people associated with the board when the dams were constructed in the 1960s and 1970s are now dead, leaving the new board members on their own to interpret an obscure mandate and sift through almost a century’s worth of unsorted paperwork.
The board is not even exactly sure of the district’s physical boundaries, although Flanagan and Montgomery say they have a general idea. “Between 82 and Teoc Creek,” said Montgomery. “I don’t think it goes into the hills at all. It doesn’t come within the municipal limits (of Greenwood).”
According to Flanagan, the boundaries of the district were laid out in the commission’s founding statutes, which he believes were filed with the Leflore County Chancery Court but has been so far unable to locate.
Montgomery and Flanagan say that each year the board surveys the ditches it is responsible for, decides which ones to prioritize and then contracts the maintenance out to the most reasonable bidder.
"We don’t have enough money to do very much," said Flanagan, adding that most years they can only afford to clear one-fourth to one-half of a mile of the ditches in their district.
The district’s budget comes from a tax on properties within. Its annual operating budget, in Flanagan’s estimation, usually comes to between $12,000 and $14,000.
In recent years, the district’s budget has shrunk even though the tax rate hasn’t gone down. Flanagan and Montgomery suspect that as properties have been split up and sold over the decades, the tax hasn’t always gone with the acreage.
According to Scott Culberson, Mississippi state engineer for the NRCS, any body vested with the operation and maintenance of levees or dams is supposed to have the authority to levy taxes on the properties within its boundaries, so in theory the board could raise that tax to increase its operating budget.
Montgomery said that even in the event that it’s decided that the dam are the commission’s responsibility, it simply isn’t practical to expect it to take over their maintenance.
Flanagan agrees. "We have no employees; we don’t have any equipment. My commissioners are farmers and businessmen, not hydrologists.”
Montgomery said he thinks the initial confusion over responsibility for dam maintenance stems from the time of their construction.
He said private landowners who wanted federal funding the construction of dams on their property needed sponsorship from their local drainage district, leading to the perception that the dams fell within the district’s mandate.
The Commonwealth recently obtained a copy of a 1971 agreement between the Big Sand Drainage Commission and the NRCS (then the Soil Conservation Service) regarding the maintenance of one dam within Carroll County.
The agreement states that the drainage commission “will be responsible for and promptly perform… all maintenance of the structural measures (dams).”
In 2002, Reginald Spears, then acting NCRS state conservationist, sent a letter to the commission regarding the same dam. The document states that the “Big Sand Drainage District is by law responsible for maintenance and liable for the entire drainage area of Big Sand Creek… Should this structure fail, you will be liable for damages downstream.”
Myers saids the MDEQ intends to meet in the next few weeks with the drainage commission board members to reiterate the commission’s responsibilities.
Montgomery said his priority as a board member is determining the physical extent of the drainage district’s boundaries and the legal extent of its mission.
Regarding dam maintenance, both the 1971 agreement and the 2002 letter indicate that the NRCS can provide assistance on major repairs subsequent to receiving an official request for help from the drainage commission.
•Contact Nick Rogers at 581-7235 or nrogers@gwcommonwealth.com.
