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Time and Tide Wait for None: Tribal Communities in Alaska and Louisiana Submit Climate-Forced Displacement Complaint to the United Nations
January 31st, 2020 — by Philip Lott — Category: Environmental Law Flooding Miscellaneous

The Alaska Institute for Justice recently filed a complaint with the United Nations (UN) on behalf of five Tribal communities located in Alaska and Louisiana. The complaint alleges that the United States (US) government is responsible for human rights violations as a result of its failure to protect the Tribes from climate-caused land loss.

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Over the past several months, the state of Mississippi has been hit with severe rainfall, causing intense flooding, especially along the Mississippi Delta (Delta). Approximately 500,000 acres in the Delta are underwater, 200,000 of which is agricultural farmland. This rainfall has swelled the Mississippi River and its levees, including the Yazoo Backwater Levee, causing some to resurrect old discussions of the Yazoo Backwater Pumping Project.

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On February 12, representatives of the state of Mississippi filed a lawsuit against the federal government in the U.S. Court of Claims alleging that federal regulation of Mississippi River water flowing through the Old River Control Structure near Baton Rouge, Louisiana had caused repeated flooding that resulted in a loss of value of land owned by school boards in three counties. Specifically, the lawsuit was filed by Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann (due to his position as the co-trustee of state land held for all Mississippi school districts), Attorney General Jim Hood, and the affected Claiborne, Natchez-Adams, and Wilkinson school districts. The state generally contends that the land’s loss of value was the fault of the federal government, thus constituting an unconstitutional “taking” in violation of the Fifth Amendment, which states that private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation. Mississippi is asking for a minimum of $25 million that would go directly to the affected school districts.

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