Workers Close the Valve on NRCS Mississippi Dam Project

BUDE, Miss. - After four years of construction and more than 40 years of wishing, hoping, and planning, officials closed the valve at the new Lake Okhissa dam this week so the lake can start filling.

Federal officials and local residents gathered November 9 on the dam near Bude to watch workmen seal off the dam and let water from Porter Creek begin backing up into the 1,100-acre lake bed.

"This is a day that NRCS has been looking to for the past four years," said Natural Resources Conservation Service state engineer Kim Harris. "Some of the other residents of this county have been working 40 years for this. It's a good day for them to see all this."

Hugh Thorn of the USDA Forest Service, Mike Green of NRCS and Pascal Baron of Hydro-gate Inc. of Memphis, Tenn., worked on top of a 90-plus-foot concrete "riser" on the lake side of the dam. They started a machine that closed the steel gate at the end of a 48-inch diameter pipe leading under the dam.

Fish stocking will start in a couple of weeks, and it will take an estimated 1 1/2 to 2 years for the lake to fill. The lake could be ready to fish by 2007.

"Today's a great day to close the gate and start a new chapter in the life of this reservoir," Harris said.

NRCS is 95 percent through with construction. Contractors must add a couple more feet of dirt to the top of the 97-foot dam and plant more vegetation for erosion control. A final inspection and formal ceremony will be held in the spring, after which NRCS will turn the lake over to its new owner, the Forest Service.

The Forest Service, in turn, will solicit bids from private companies to establish a recreation area around the lake with such amenities as a marina, lodge, cabins and campgrounds, said new Homochitto National Forest ranger Tim Reed.

Reed took the job three weeks ago, replacing Gary Bennett, who retired.

"This is a great way to start," Reed said. "This is one of the benchmarks everybody has been looking forward to for a long time."

One of those people is Mary Lou Webb, owner of the Franklin Advocate newspaper in Meadville. She and her husband, the late David Webb, were longtime promoters of the lake. Webb died Sept. 21, 2002, at age 66.

"David was involved in it for over 40 years, since we've been in Franklin County," said Mary Lou Webb, who was present for the valve-closing. "We came in 1962. He was telling me about it the day before he died. He said, 'If anything ever happens to me, take it over.'"

Mary Lou Webb predicts the lake will bring great financial benefits and recreational opportunities to Franklin County and the surrounding area.

"I tell you somebody else I'd like to see here today and that's Frank Oakes," she said, referring to the veteran economic development leader of McComb who died Oct. 11 at age 76.

"He really loved this project. He used to call me every Friday and ask about the lake," Mary Lou Webb said.

The valve closure has been a long time coming. Construction started in 2000 but stalled in 2002 when the contractor claimed the dam design was unsafe, prompting a series of tests and inspections. Concerns were heightened by several dam breaks around the state.

After some repairs and design modifications, tests declared the dam foundation to be sound and NRCS hired a new contractor to complete the job.

Located in the rugged Homochitto River valley, Lake Okhissa will have steep banks, 39 miles of shoreline around numerous coves, with a maximum depth of around 80 feet and an average of 30 feet.

"It's tremendous," Reed said, surveying the hilly terrain around the lake bed. "You've got some topography unique to Mississippi, and that really lends itself well to this lake."

Contractors have dug out holding ponds in the lake bed to hold fish, which will disperse as the water level rises.

Officials will stock the lake with bluegill and redear bream, fathead minnows, threadfin shad, lake chubsuckers and channel catfish. In the spring they will add Florida and northern largemouth bass, then crappie a couple of years later to keep them from devouring the baby bass.

Reed said biologists will carefully balance the species, so it's essential that local fishing enthusiasts don't try to add their own favorite types of fish to the lake.

Story by Ernest Herndon, The Sun Herald.