Supervisors receive update on weir at Wilson Slough

The Pearl River County Board of Supervisors received an update from County Engineer Les Dungan on the progress on the weir project at Pearl River near Walkaih Bluff at Wilson Slough.

During Monday's meeting, Dungan said they are planning to fly a drone over the area again to do an ariel assessment on the area, but recent high water is preventing that from happening. Dungan said the water level is currently around 15 feet high, and in order to be able to do get imagery to compare to previous imagery to see what has happened to the structure over an extended period of time, the water level needs to be around 10 feet.

Dungan said he is worried about what they may find because the weir structure was already failing before the two big recent floods on the Pearl River when the water remained at a high level for a long period ot time during both floods.

In December 2019, Dungan told the supervisors that he had observed a part of the weir structure that is coming apart where the sheet pile wall is missing on the pilings of the structure. He said during that meeting that his biggest concern is the flow of the Pearl River could eventually bypass the structure as it fails and result in a 100 percent flow into Louisiana away from the Pearl River in Mississippi.

Dungan said he is working on a revised MOU (Memorandium of Understanding) with DEQ (Dept of Enviromental Quality) on adding Pearl River County as the receiving entity of the funds previously set aside for maintenance repairs on the weir. He also stated he is working with the Corps of Engineers on a permitting requirement to perform the maintenance. Dungan said this will be in place to allow the project work to be performed and the actual project work as well without having to go back through the process a second time for another permit.

File photo / WRJW News

The bridge that was used before the last time work was done at the weir site will be used again and Dungan said he is working on easements with the landowners to acquire those documents. He has received one of the three agreements needed, but stated the timing of COVID-19 has hindered the progress of getting in front of people to discuss the needed easements.