TYLERTOWN, Miss.—On a clear, hot summer afternoon along the Bogue Chitto creek at Walker’s Bridge Water Park in southern Miss., Noah Devros dives into the murky water with a flashlight and cheap plastic dive mask. He emerges holding a small turtle.
Devros is a graduate student and researcher from the University of Southern Mississippi, and he’s working to tag and inventory the Pearl River map turtle, which in July was listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. The rule effectively makes it illegal to harm the animals in any way.
Armed with these new protections, this turtle could be the catalyst for halting a huge and controversial engineering project upriver in Jackson, Miss., known locally as “One Lake.”
Devros weighs and tags the map turtle before placing her back into the sand.
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“They’re really charismatic,” said Devros, adding that the species is important to the local ecology; they eat invasive clams and clean the water by consuming algae.
The Pearl River map turtle, named after the one place it calls home and the maplike details on its back, relies on the running waters of the Pearl River basin in Mississippi and Louisiana to eat, nest and live.
But upstream, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has put forward a plan to reduce flooding from the Pearl River in Jackson. The plan—one of four flood-control proposals being considered by the agency—would dredge and widen a section of the Pearl and build a new dam across the river, creating an artificial lake spanning roughly 1,700 acres.
Map: Jared Whalen ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region.jpg?fit=285%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region.jpg?fit=780%2C822&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region.jpg?resize=780%2C822&ssl=1″ alt=”A map showing the Pearl River and the Mississippi River” class=”wp-image-47122″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region.jpg?resize=972%2C1024&ssl=1 972w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region.jpg?resize=285%2C300&ssl=1 285w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region.jpg?resize=768%2C809&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region.jpg?resize=1200%2C1264&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region.jpg?resize=400%2C421&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region.jpg?w=1240&ssl=1 1240w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-one-lake-map-region-972×1024.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px”>Map: Jared Whalen Credit: Created with Datawrapper
Scientists and environmental groups warn that One Lake would be devastating for the map turtle, flooding beaches the species depends on for