The Grand Prairie Irrigation Project is a $319-million pump that would take more than 158 billion gallons a year from the White River to irrigate 867 farms in eastern Arkansas, which produce just 6 percent of Arkansas' total rice crop.

 

For comparison, the city of Little Rock uses 19 billion gallons annually. These massive withdrawals would permanently alter the White River's complex hydrology. By the Corps' own estimate, the project would lower the level of the river approximately one foot. Reduced river flows would degrade water quality and threaten the region's internationally recognized bottomland hardwood forests, which depend on regular flooding.

 

Injunction puts temporary halt on the project

 

On July 20, 2006, U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson, Jr. ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop work on the massive Grand Prairie Irrigation Project in eastern Arkansas, as it could jeopardize the newly-rediscovered ivory-billed woodpecker.

 

The injunction was granted at the request of the National Wildlife Federation and the Arkansas Wildlife Federation who argued in a 2005 lawsuit that the Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had not adequately studied the impacts of the project on the woodpecker and its habitat.

 

The judge ruled that the Corps had "put the cart before the horse" and he temporarily halted all work on the project until the Corps has systematically searched for signs of ivory-bill activity near the planned pump, pipelines and canals as well as in the area most affected by changes in the water levels.

 

The ivory-billed woodpecker, rediscovered

 

In April 2005, the Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton announced to the world that the ivory-billed woodpecker had been rediscovered, saying, "This is a rare second chance to preserve through cooperative conservation what was once thought lost forever."

 

The bird has been seen several times in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, just 20 miles from the pump site and within its zone of impact. Several sound recordings of the bird's distinctive double knock have been made in the White River National Wildlife Refuge, just south of what the Corps is defining as the impacted area. The ivory-bill's habitat could be affected by the construction activities as well as by changes to the hydrology of the river.

 

Putting a stop to Grand Prairie for good

 

Even though the Bush Administration has recommended zero funding the project for the last five years, Congress continues to set aside money during the appropriations process to keep construction of the pump station going.

 

TAKE ACTION: Contact your representatives and urge them NOT to continue funding this irresponsible, environmentally-damaging project.

 

Funding for this costly project has been controversial from the start. The local irrigation district was not able to get enough support from landowners to gain taxing authority to fund the local cost share. Even before Judge Wilson's ruling, project construction had stopped because the irrigation district ran out of money. The pumping station was left partially completed and the construction contractor demobilized for an additional fee of $500,000.

 

A boondoggle, by the numbers

Total cost: $319,000,000

U.S. taxpayer's share: $208,000,000

Arkansas' share: $111,000,000

Cost per farm: $239,908

Number of farms to be irrigated: 867

Corps' estimate of how much the pump will lower river levels: 1 foot

 

"This project is a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars. With the recent injunction and the hold on state funding it makes no sense for Congress to fund this project that threatens the integrity of the lower White River and provides such questionable benefits for so few people." -- David Carruth, Arkansas Wildlife Federation

 

"It's clear this irrigation project is the wrong solution to the water problem on the Grand Prairie because there are so many local farmers and other citizens in the area who are opposing it." -- Neal Galloway, rice farmer