Landowners at odds with Army Corp of Engineers over river dyke project - WSIL TV

MILLER CITY (WSIL) -- A legal fight is brewing in Alexander County over farmland near the Mississippi River.

Residents in Miller City are fighting actions by the Army Corps of Engineers who are building a rock dyke structure across their property.

The work is being done near the Len Small Levee. That levee breached in 1993, 2011, and 2016, flooding thousands of acres in and around Miller City, Olive Branch, and Horseshoe Lake.

Since the breach in 2016, the levee has not been rebuilt, and landowners in the area have been at the mercy of the river.

Now, the Army Corps of Engineers says it's working to shore up the navigational channel on the river, which involves building an embankment. The problem? It's on private property.

Landowners explain they have "no say" in the matter as the Corps is using a doctrine called "navigational servitude", which allows them to build the structure to protect the navigational flow of the river.

In response to the Corps' actions, landowners are making a symbolic protest by parking their farm tractor in the way to block further construction.

"We're standing in the middle of my father-in-law's field," explains Sherry Pecord. "And what you're seeing behind me is Corps of Engineers taking over his field to put in a rock dyke structure to slow the navigational flow of the river."

Pecord says the dyke will overtake more than 30 acres of crop land, and still not fix the problem, which she says is repairing the levee.

The U.S. Corps of Engineers released a statement Thursday afternoon saying they are "working within their authority to address the damages at the Dog Tooth Bend area to ensure the stability and safety of the Navigation Channel on the adjacent Mississippi River."

"So they're coming in our property under the navigational servitude rule, that says anything under 328 feet (above sea level), they can come in and do whatever they want," says Pecord, adding that the loss of cropland is not compensated. "If they would have done imminent domain, which we still wouldn't be happy with, but at least he would have been compensated in some way, but they're just coming in, under this sketchy little rule of navigational servitude and just taking over, and building this."

While Pecord acknowledges the outcome may remain the same, they have hired an attorney and parked their tractor on the construction site as a symbolic gesture. "We're not happy about it, and we're just not going to make it easy for them."

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, this is the first step in an emergency effort. They say Thursday's incident, with farm equipment blocking their access, is being dealt with through "legal means."

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Landowners at odds with Army Corp of Engineers over river dyke project - WSIL TV
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