By Billy Davis

A June 4 meeting in Greenwood, held to gauge public opinion of a planned resort at Sardis Lake, concluded with strong opposition to the project.

“There was unanimous opposition,” one attendee, Leflore County Administrator Sam Abraham, told The Panolian last week.

He said farmers, business owners and public officials protested out of fears that the lake development would gobble up acreage that is now set aside to hold floodwaters.

The June 7 story in the Greenwood Commonwealth, which quoted Abraham and others, mirrored similar concerns.

Any lake development at Mississippi’s four reservoirs represents a threat to Delta flood control, several people told the newspaper.

“No one likes to see economic development more than I do, but not when it puts other communities at risk,” Angela Curry, executive director of the Greenwood-Leflore-Carroll Economic Development Foundation, told the Commonwealth.  

The meeting was held June 4 in Greenwood, behind closed doors, at the Greenwood-Leflore Chamber of Commerce, the Commonwealth reported.

The Sardis Lake resort, if realized, would occupy approximately 2,000 acres on Sardis Upper Lake, where the Sardis Lake Marina already operates on 1,000 acres leased to the City of Sardis.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, after leasing the acreage to Sardis, would lease an additional 1,000 acres if the resort development ever wins congressional approval.

The proposed resort represents an ambitious plan of condos and single-family homes, 18-hole golf course, and a hotel and conference center, in what is now a lightly populated area south of the lake.

The resort would represent a second phase of development, coming after the long-planned marina that itself limped along in Congress for more than a decade.

The Commonwealth story, describing an executive summary of the “Sardis Lake Recreation Project,” rattled off more details of the project: an indoor water park, a “retail village,” 1,600 single-family homes, and a “300-unit condo hotel lodge.”

The newspaper reported that Southern Developers Realty, Inc. is the master developer.

The Panolian reported that news in 2006, when Sardis Mayor Rusty Dye first reported meeting with Southern Developers and the Army Corps of Engineers about the project.

Dye has led the push for the resort. He made a hasty trip to Washington, D.C. last summer to lobby Mississippi’s congressional delegation, taking some Panola County officials with him.

The Panolian reported at the time that the project was in limbo, with “ongoing dialogue” between U.S. Senator Roger Wicker and Corps officials. No legislation had been introduced.

“The path forward remains unclear,” a spokesman for Wicker said at the time.  

According to Abraham, Wicker’s congressional staffers and the Delta Council, and economic development organization representing Delta counties, arranged the meeting in Greenwood. The senator’s staffers appeared to be neutral about the project, he said.

But the Delta Council is not. The Council has asked that the Corps maintain the operational plan for Sardis Lake and Mississippi’s other reservoirs, Grenada, Enid and Arkabutla, according to the Commonwealth story.

A committee within the Council adopted that resolution in February 2009.

The Delta Council also sent a letter to Mississippi’s congressional delegation, asking that any transfer of title include language that prohibits any changes in the operational plan without congressional approval.

“I felt like the Senator was on a fact-finding mission to hear where we stood,” said Abraham. “We don’t want him to forget what the reservoirs were built for.”

A spokesman for Wicker told the Commonwealth that the meeting was closed to the media to encourage those attending to express their opinions openly, the newspaper reported.