Officials with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Meridian, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, The Mississippi Soil and Water Conservation Commission and the Lauderdale County Soil and Water Conservation District gathered Thursday, June 25, 2009 to trumpet yet another victory in preserving the Chunky-Okatibbee Watershed Project, a project the East Mississippi Foothills Land Trust (EMFLT) has taken on.

The Chunky-Okatibbee Watershed is a unique and critical component of Mississippi’s natural environment. A watershed is land that drains rain or storm water to a stream, lake, wetland, bay, gulf or ocean. The Chunky-Okatibbee watershed flows into the Chickasawhay River, which in turn carries the water into the Pascagoula River Basin. From there the water drains into the Gulf of Mexico. The watershed encompasses hundreds of small feeder creeks that cover large areas of Newton and Lauderdale County and smaller sections of Kemper, Neshoba and Clarke counties. In all, the Chunky-Okatibbee Watershed contains about 912 square miles or approximately 586,240 acres.

The installation of the four dry storage shacks in Lauderdale County and two in Kemper County will aid in preventing the contamination of creeks and rivers in the watershed by providing places for poultry farmers to store chicken litter. Waste products such as chicken house litter are referred to as a non-point pollution source. Other examples of this include oil, grease, excess fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and toxic chemicals from nearby urban runoff and construction.

Volunteers with the EMFLT set aside cleanup days and spend long hours of investigation to pinpoint areas of suspected pollution sources. They also doggedly take water samples of surrounding water sources to monitor water quality.

The funding for this project was presented through the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. “Vincent and the EMFLT were able to install the dry storage shacks with funding left over from the initial grant,” said Kelvin Jackson, supervising district conservationist for the NRCS. Eco Systems of Meridian also helped in acquiring the funding.

The EMFLT was established in November 2003 with Tommy Vincent as president. The organization adopted the Chunky River as their first project.

It is the mission of the EMFLT to conserve, promote and protect the open spaces and green places of ecological, cultural or scenic significance in East Mississippi.