Overview
 The Pascagoula River is an amazing natural resource, home to a dazzling diversity of plants and animals and renowned for its vibrant marshes and wonderful fishing. In fact, the “Singing River” is one of the last large free-flowing rivers in the continental United States.
From its natural beauty to its economic benefits, the Pascagoula River plays a vital role in every community that it touches. Thousands of people spend time in and around the river fishing, hunting, and swimming. Local businesses rely on the Pascagoula as a water source, and the river helps encourage tourism – an industry which contributes over $140 million into the local economy every year while creating nearly 2,000 jobs.
The River and its estuary are also a vital breeding ground for the wildlife which inhabit the Mississippi Sound and the Gulf of Mexico. Many of the fish and wildlife species which we love to catch and hunt rely on the health of the Pascagoula and the Mississippi Sound and these waterbodies act as important habitat for recreational species like speckled trout and red drum along with several endangered species.
All of these benefits and more are threatened by a Department of Energy proposal to create a new petroleum reserve site near Richton, Mississippi.
The Issue
 This destructive federal project involves hollowing out sixteen salt caverns near Richton, Mississippi in order to store oil. The plan would require withdrawing 50 million gallons of water per day for 5-6 years from the Pascagoula River to dissolve the salt! The extremely salty water from this process would then be discharged just south of Horn Island, a Mississippi barrier island – potentially creating a dead zone where sea life cannot survive. The cost of the Richton project is estimated at $17 billion – money that could be better spent on reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil.
The proposed plan could have major consequences for the health of the Pascagoula River, the Mississippi Sound, and the Gulf of Mexico. Reduced water flow could impact important marsh habitat and lead to salt-water intrusion at the river’s mouth and estuary. The project may also rob local companies and communities of the water they need to grow. Finally, the 330 miles of pipelines required for the project will impact over 1,500 acres of wetlands. In fact, the Department of Energy predicts more than 56 salt water spills and 18 oil spills during the construction of the pipelines and the initial fill of the storage site!
This project will hurt Mississippi’s coastal ecosystem and the hunters, fishermen, and businesses which rely upon it. We cannot allow this to happen.
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Take Action - Tell Congress to halt the salt dome project!
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