Land grading will help, not hurt, drainage

scottw@standard-democrat.com

CHARLESTON -- Grading -- and other work -- to farmland south of the intersection of Highways 62 and 77 west of Charleston should improve drainage, not cause additional flooding.

Farmer Robert Jackson and the landowner, Leslie Fox, met with the Mississippi County Commission during their regular meeting Thursday to discuss flooding concerns raised during the Commission's Oct. 9 meeting.

During that meeting, Harold McClendon, who lives on the southeast side of the Highway 62 T-intersection, voiced his concern water would no longer drain from his property due to the north side of the farm field immediately south of his property being so much higher.

"Les and I would like to go on the record on what we've done," Jackson said.

The highway drainage alongside McClendon's property was, before their project, "kind of a ditch to nowhere," Jackson said. "With a big rain it would just back up into his yard."

Fox said before his land was graded, water did drain from those properties on Highway 62 near the intersection.

"It only flowed out into my field," Fox said, "and ponded up because there was low place there."

In addition to have the field graded to slope to the south, "I took care of my hole and dug a ditch clear to the Interstate," he said. "We're not quite finished."

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