THE FIGHT TO build the Two Lakes Flood Control and Economic Development Plan is far from over.

That was the defiant statement of Two Lakes supporters last week following a vote by the Rankin-Hinds Pearl River Flood and Drainage Control District (levee board) to kill the plan and back levees instead.

“We will continue our fight to bring sufficient flood control to Jackson,” said Dallas Quinn, spokesman for the Two Lakes Foundation. “The ball game is not over.”

At its meeting on December 14, the board voted 5-2 to back the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ comprehensive levee plan. The plan is an unpopular proposal to provide flood control by bolstering the same levee system that failed to protect the capital city and surrounding municipalities during floods in 1979 and 1983.

The decision came after intense debate between supporters of the project and those opposed to it.

Voting in favor of the measure included Richland Mayor Mark Scarborough, Flowood Mayor Gary Rhoads, Pearl Mayor Brad Rogers, Rankin County representative Billy Orr and Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson.

Those voting against it included Hinds County representative Socrates Garrett and state appointee Leland Speed.

Quinn said the foundation will continue to point out the flaws of the levee system and push for Two Lakes to be implemented.

Rhoads made the motion to adopt the levee proposal, a $296 million project outlined in a draft feasibility study completed by the corps in February 2007.

As part of the motion, the corps Vicksburg District will have to agree to build the levees to accommodate the creation of a small lake.

“Twenty years from now when we get flooding again, you can’t say I didn’t do something to create some flood control,” Rhoads said.

Most members voting in favor of the plan said the decision was to ensure that the district wouldn’t lose $133 million in federal funding to help pay for the implementation of a flood control measure.

Congress set aside the millions of dollars in the 2007 Water Resources and Development Act. The corps recently terminated its agreement with the board to study flood control, putting the funding in jeopardy.

“We faced the chance of losing funds,” Johnson said. “This was problematic to me as an elected official.”

Although he voted for the levee plan, he said that in order to support it, the corps will have to address backwater flooding at Town and Lynch creeks, as well as create features that will give residents access to the water. He didn’t know when the levees would be implemented.

SPEED SAID THE vote was a tragic one for the capital city. “The city will look just like that again,” he said, holding up an aerial photograph from the Easter Flood of 1979. “The levee system doesn’t protect Jackson from flooding.”

The vote comes months after the levee board made requests to the federal agency to study all plans for flood control, including Two Lakes.

After spending $2.8 million to study it, the corps stated that it had not and would not evaluate Two Lakes, and only support levees because of its impact on the environment.