While issues surrounding the controversial Marvin Nichols Reservoir have dominated most meetings of the Sulphur River Basin Authority, a new issue surfaced at a meeting this week, giving board members something else to talk about. A massive logjam near the point where the Sulphur River crosses Highway 37 between Mount Vernon and Bogata is causing flooding, erosion and frequent road-closings. Nearby residents are anxious for a resolution to the situation.

"There's a massive erosion problem and that logjam is causing a lot of problems -- we've got levees brok up there," said David Nabors, a landowner near the problem area. "We need some help and the Corps of Engineers won't give it."

According to SRBA President Mike Huddleston, the Army Corps of Engineers spent $100,000 several years ago to study the trouble spot and determined the major difficulty would be in getting the logs out. "In order to extract the problematic timber, a helicopter would have to move them to higher ground where they could then be hauled off by truck. For whatever reason, Congress, which was the federal government, said that was cost-prohibitive," said Huddleston. As an agency charged with only overseeing the Sulphur River, he noted that the SRBA did not have money to fund any large-scale projects. "But we can certainly get on your side and support you."

Nabors commented, "As the Sulphur River Basin Authority, you would have more pull or power in Austin to get us the money to solve some of these problems we need."

Although the Authority could not directly fund the extraction project, Huddleston did say that engineers recently hired by the SRBA would be considering that problem and others in their long-term study of the areas under consideration for building the Marvin Nichols Reservoir.

"There will have to be work done as to what effect the lake is going to have such as erosion, such as downstream water quality," the SRBA President said. "All of those things are going to be done in the next five years. Whatever we find, such as the logjam, if there's anyway we can help alleviate the problem, certainly we will."

According to Billie Scoggins Lindsey, whose family has owned land in that area for several generations, the problem won't wait to be studied. "It's not going to be five years before we have a disaster on that highway," she said. "If something's not done, we will not be using Highway 37 going south." She noted that the highway was essential for residents in the area connecting them to Bogata and Paris going north and Mount Vernon and Mount Pleasant headed south. According to Lindsey, the logjam has built up from cut timber coming from Talco over the last six to eight years.

John McConnell, who lives a mile and a half north of the Sulphur River on Highway 37, said he can't remember it ever being so bad. "It's not going to be long before the silt is going to be so high that the river will always flood the highway when we get substantial rain. All the water after it leaves 37 is going south into Franklin County, and it's destroyed forests that used to be there -- it turned everything into willow trees."

Huddleston agreed that the situation was serious and said the board would help, however it could. "What I think can be done, especially from this board's standpoint, is to get behind you and start writing with your help," he said. "We will certainly take the lead in that, and do everything we can in the very near future to try and get some attention. With your help and our help, we're willing to do whatever we can."