CARROLLTON — You could say it was the same song, just a different verse.
Charlie Montgomery, chairman of the Big Sand Drainage District, and the Carroll County Board of Supervisors took up Tuesday where they left off when they tabled discussion at the May 13 meeting on which one was going to sign off on Bailey Lake so that repair work could begin.
There is up to $3 million on the table from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. But in order to begin work, a government entity has to agree to maintenance, including keeping the lake’s levees free of trees, bush hogging and inspecting for leaks. Neither the drainage district nor the county board wants to sign on the dotted line.
With an annual budget of around $14,000 obtained from taxing landowners in the district, Montgomery said the district doesn’t have the funds to pay for maintenance. Carroll County, which is facing budget shortfalls due to funding cuts at the state level, is also wary of agreeing.
Montgomery said that since the May 13 meeting, he had been asked to attend the next meeting of the Leflore County Board of Supervisors.
“They are upset because we are spending too much time worrying about the lakes in the hills,” Montgomery said.
According to Montgomery, there are levees and ditches in Leflore County that need to be maintained, and “there is no way that we can take care of them with the tax base that we have on the 15,000 acres in Leflore County.
“Y’all have the whole county,” he told Carroll supervisors. “If y’all won’t take it, that’s fine, but y’all have the ability to take care of the stuff more than we do. You don’t have to because it hasn’t been done and everybody just says, ‘Let’s just keep doing things the way they are.’
“That’s what y’all are deciding, and I will go back to my commission and tell them that we can’t get any help from the county and we are going to keep taxing our little bit of the Delta that is in the district down there and y’all aren’t going to help us with these dams up here in the hills.”
The Big Sand district is composed of 12,700 acres in Leflore County and 15,400 in Carroll County. The four watershed districts in Carroll County include over 75,000 acres with 35,718 behind dams, and there are 14 dams in the Big Sand district.
Most of the dams were built in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They were designed with an expected lifespan of 50 years.
Beat 1 Supervisor Jim Neill said that the board cannot agree to pay for maintenance of levees.
“We don’t want to lose the money. We want it to stay in the county, in the BSDD. I just don’t see how we can accept responsibility,” Neill said.
Montgomery said that if the Big Sand district pays for maintenance, landowners in the district who have no part in the lakes will be taxed to pay for all the work. He said that the problem is a Carroll County issue, not a Big Sand district issue.
“I think that we are beating a dead horse,” Montgomery said. “Y’all’s minds are made up, and I will go back and tell the commission your decision. We (Montgomery and the two other commissioners) will talk about it and decide what we are going to do.”
Several landowners from around Bailey Lake were present Tuesday and asked about the possibility of them agreeing to maintenance duties after the initial repair work is done.
“We appreciate that, but legally that doesn’t help,” Montgomery said.
Board attorney Kevin Horan suggested that the landowners who have a vested interest in this come to the board and say they are willing to take a maintenance assessment for whatever it takes and petition the board; then it would take the load off the drainage district. They could form their own drainage district under the same 1913 law under which the Big Sand district was formed. Then there would be precedents set on other levees, Walker Lake being the next in line.
Montgomery left the meeting with the advice to take one dam, see how it works and see if there is a better way. He said that perhaps the thing to do would be to kill the Big Sand district and let all the dams go back to the landowners.
In other business:
• The board was told that repairs of County Road 282, which are expected cost $65,520, will begin upon approval from the board.
• The board agreed to purchase a brush truck for the Beat 1 volunteer fire department. The truck will cost $24,500 and be financed by Peoples Bank.
• The board advertised the sale of a 1997 motor grader used in Beat 2. Of the six bids received Dean Company Auctions placed the winning bid of $45,800. Proceeds from the sale will go towards the purchase of a new or used motor grader. Bids from Stribling Equipment and Thompson Machinery were taken under advisement until the next meeting.
• The board approved reimbursement for Circuit Clerk Durwood Stanton, Sherry Blaylock, Stephanie Gillespie and County Prosecutor Lori Bell to attend certification training and DUI forums in Jackson.
• The board approved amendment of the agreement between Centurion of MS LLC and the Carroll Montgomery Regional Correctional Facility. Staying with CMRCF, the board approved the claim of Ronald Reid Welch for $3,000 to inspect the living quarters of the inmates who work for he litter program. This has to be done annually.
