March 13, 2019

I have a history with the Tombigbee River.

My Mom grew up 10 miles from the river in Marengo County, Alabama. She remembers going with her brothers to fish from the eastern bank. She also remembers many meals at Ezelle’s Fish Camp on the other bank. We added a memory Saturday night, prior to Sunday’s Alabama family reunion. Just a few days prior, the Tombigbee flood waters had cut off access to Ezelle’s for more than a week. We joined a hungry crew of patrons with a pent up need for fried catfish and hushpuppies.

My history with the Tombigbee River started in the early 80s when, as a reporter for the Columbus, MS daily newspaper, I was assigned to cover the construction of the Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway.

The waterway was deemed a boondoggle by most of the Country. For the towns along the waterway in Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, it was an economic boost, for a short while at least, bringing jobs, recreation and commerce to a fairly forgotten rural America that was in short supply of promise.

All in all, it was a controversial $2 billion public works project that created a 232-mile shortcut from middle America to the Gulf of Mexico by linking the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers. Commercial barges would be able to cut off 800 miles and five days by using the Tenn-Tom Waterway instead of navigating the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers.

In my three years of covering the construction project, I climbed on unfinished locks and dams, spent a lot of time on boats and chronicled the stories of people who lived on the river – those who expected to benefit from the construction and those who were devastated that the government would take their land and displace their way of life.

One of my first experiences with the Tombigbee was during a Spring flood. Assigned to shadow the civil defense director as he assessed conditions, I was with him when the call came that a lady was stranded in her house with waters still rising. Dressed in high heels, a jacket and pleated skirt, I followed the civil defense director into the muddy flood waters. We walked for a half mile with the water just above our waists, trying to stay on the paved road beneath the water. It was a stupid thing to do. When we reached the stranded lady, she refused to leave her house. She claimed the title of “river rat” and recounted the many floods she had lived through without leaving her house. She was not about to budge now- even though a case could be made that we had risked our lives to fetch her. By the time the unsuccessful rescue had unfolded, a boat was available to retrieve those of us who were delighted to be rescued. Wet and cold, I was dropped off at my car at the water’s edge. My entire outfit for the day, shoes and all, ended up in the garbage can.

The next year, with Waterway construction well underway, I had an appointment with a tugboat captain to report on dredging progress. Arriving early, I hopped on the deck of the tugboat and knocked on the captain’s door. I was not greeted warmly. Superstition has it, I later learned, that it is bad luck for a woman to set foot on a tug boat. For the next year, I was blamed for numerous broken drills, two general mechanical failures and a broken arm.

And then there was the big press conference at then-Alabama Congressman Tom Bevill’s family river camp. With Congressional funding for the Waterway getting harder to come by, Bevill had invited key U.S. Representatives and Senators to take a tour of the waterway and have lunch with locals who supported the project. The turnout was spectacular. The press had to be bussed in because of parking challenges. The Congressional delegation arrived by helicopter.

Part of that Congressional delegation was Sacramento Representative Vic Fazio. During comments after lunch, Fazio made note of the large turnout. Bevill joked that the crowd came to see the helicopter.

It was Fazio that I picked out to interview for my story. I was curious why a California congressman would support continued funding for a controversial project that decidedly benefitted Southern states. He reasoned the need to bring coal more efficiently to the east coast, which would benefit the entire country.

Years later, as a Sacramento resident, I attended a fund-raiser for Fazio in his last re-election campaign. “We’ve actually met before at Tom Bevill’s camp in Alabama,” I said when it was my turn to shake his hand. He laughed and told me the real reason he supported funding the waterway. He agreed to vote in favor of completing the Tenn-Tom Waterway in exchange for Bevill’s vote for a wetlands project in Yolo County. Sacramento friends now know that project as the Vic Fazio Yolo Wildlife Area.

That could be a commentary on how politics used to work. The Fazio Wildlife Area is now a 400-acre managed native California wetlands ecosystem. And, as I recall, it has some positive flood control aspects for Sacramento. River commerce has benefited by the Tenn-Tom Waterway shortcut. And, the towns along the Waterway did get a much needed boost, even if for some it was short-lived.

Sunday, as we crossed the Tombigbee River again (now the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway), we indeed saw a barge barreling down the river. And, sure enough, in one compartment was a stack of coal.