What is the "Levee Board"?

[MikeA57]

The farmer that farms our property told me he had a surprise for me and my sons yesterday and asked me to meet him after work. We did and he took us down to the river side of a levee and gave us permission to hunt a ~125 acre swath of land between the levee and the MS river. It'll be a a great place to hunt. He said that we had the north end of the property and that another guy has the south end, they both look to be about the same size.

He said the property has been in his family for about 70 years and he used to hunt it as a kid, but he alluded at one point that they rent it. He then told me that he had always just charged the guy that has the other section whatever the levee board charged him and had never made any money off of that deal. He's not charging us for the use of this land which is great and much appreciated. (It is renegotiation time on our lease with him so I feel sure this is a gesture for us to not raise their rent. Not trying to be cynical, just observant.)

But his comment about the levee board has me curious about what the levee board is, what jurisdiction do they have, are there rules and caveats that I need to be aware of and so forth. Do they own the land on the other side of the levee, or do landowners have to pay for upkeep of the levee or for access to their land across it, or what? Oh, and he also mentioned that we can hunt the woods but not up on the levee itself. Someone else owns that and cuts it for hay. There is a fence that separates the woods from the levee area. He's going to get me a key to the lock on the gate that leads up to the levee but I'm wondering what kind of responsibility the puts on me too.

 

[dodge man]

Usually a area protected by a levee covers several different owners. There is a board, almost like a homeowners association, that takes care of the maintance of the levee, pumps, drainage channels etc. I assume if you own ground in one of these areas, you get charged every year to help maintain all that stuff.

 

[sfloggie]

Mike,

Here is the Levee Board URL.

Yazoo Levee Home

Side note:
Once while in Special Forces my team went down the Mississippi River in 6 man zodiacs for three days. We met the greatest people as boats stopped to give us water and food. Some were going to MO and some were going to New Orleans.
One night we were rowing and I was looking at the stars in the sky. All of a sudden the stars near us went dark and I wondered why. Then I heard a noise and all of us realized at once that a huge barge was lowering over us and being pushed by a fast tug.
Believe me, that we rowed hard toward the bank. Just as the barge front was almost directly over us it suddenly turned. I thought we were OK, but then the tug came by and turned. We were then being sucked into it's "screws". We started rowing hard again, but thankfully the tug pulled away.

I had the men move to the bank and up the sides. We were dead tired and fell asleep. Not sure how much later, but there was a loud noise and a herd of cattle ran toward us and around our boats.

I said to heck with iut and we went to sleep in our boats. At sun up I saw why the barge and tug moved away. We were at a bend in the river. The tug aims at a bend, pushes the barge toward it and then turns hard left or right. Thank God we we at the point of his finished turn.

Then I noticed (like you said) that we were up the river bank; however, the levee was in the distance and about 60 feet higher. We ate then got back into the river, actually thankful for the experience!

Thanks for listening and Best to you,

Jim