Legal Battle
On September 19, 2007, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dealt a major blow to the $107 million St. John's Bayou/New Madrid Floodway Project. In ordering a halt to the floodwall's construction, Judge James Robertson said the Corps had improperly manipulated its habitat models to make it seem that the project's environmental impacts would be "compliant with the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, when it is not." He further ordered that the already completed work on the project, tallied at $7 million, be undone.
The decision came after environmentalist groups argued that the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act were being violated in the name of agrarian prosperity; and that the Floodway project would create no possible human benefit.
"That's a bunch of nonsense," says one local official, "They can say what they want, but they don't live here."
Emerson called the judge's ruling "a pause before we move forward..."
Read more about this topic: New Madrid Floodway Project
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