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My heart is sad as I write this. I just came from a meeting at the high school gym where the public was invited to come see the propaganda the Dept. Of Energy has provided. . There were tables with displays like kids science projects set up explaining how the DOE was going to manage the Richton Salt Dome Project.
This is a project where the DOE will pump 50 million gallons of water a day for five years from the Pascagoula River to flush out salt domes, then pump strategic oil reserves into the domes. The briny flush water will be piped 96 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico.
The DOE has already picked the site, the deed is done, but after some protests were raised, they're having these nominal meet and greet meetings, a DOE "happy hour" to explain how the whole project will be good for everybody; so their attitude is all you backwoods doofuses just go home and shut up. I asked a representative if I could speak. I had written a message on the back of a blank check. Noooo! You were supposed to be here to look, not to voice an opinion!
A TV reporter from Hattiesburg said I was the only negative voice, so could he film me and take some comments and I'd be on the 10pm news. No. I looked too bad for that. But the DOE had a court reporter taking statements from anyone who wanted to be recorded on the official record, and your statement would be in the National Archives forever. So, disheartened, I went over and did that.
I said to her, "I want to speak for the river." She recorded my statement: "The Leaf River meets the Chickasawhay River at Merrill and forms the Pascagoula River. In prehistory, Indians built mounds here at the junctions of these two rivers because they recognized the sacredness of this place.
The eddys and swirling currents at the junction of these rivers caused what was described as a singing sound; hence the Pascagoula River is known as the Singing River, a sound sometimes described as the humming of bees. Legend has it Indians walked into the river singing as they drowned, and it is their voices who made the singing sound.
The Singing River doesn't sing anymore. It has already been adulterated and abused by effluent pumped into the Leaf River by paper mills. Our rivers should not be sewers. They should not be manipulated and abused and put endangered species at risk-not to mention loss of wetlands as the river winds down to the Gulf. Every time human beings seek to influence the course or flow of a river the results are never good.
Go put the oil reserves at existing sites and leave our river alone."
I left and out in the car, I cried. I was the lone voice to speak for that wild and beautiful and lonely river. I wept because I was so incompetent at it. I am not articulate. The river deserved so much more, a powerful voice that would be heeded. It needs a hero--not some fat old lady with a hole in the toe of her moccasin. I just know one thing--What they're going to do to the Pascagoula River is wrong wrong wrong..and there's no one to stop what's going to happen.
Susil
Don't sell yourself short - you are one of the most articulate people I "know." Maybe a few letters to the editors would help?