RANKIN COUNTY, Miss.- Wildlife Mississippi, USDOT Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and the Mississippi Department of Transportation plan to dedicate a natural area on the Pearl River.
The property located in Rankin County will be officially dedicatedon Wednesday Nov. 2 at 2 p.m. after MDOT transfers the ownership of the land deed to Wildlife Mississippi. The property will then be dedicated and named for a famous conservationist in the state, which has not yet be released.
Wildlife Mississippi said the property will be used s a natural area that is three times larger than New York City’s Central Park. It is in the top-20 largest urban green spaces east of the Mississippi River.
The site is considered a wetland mitigation bank for MDOT. It offsets unavoidable losses of streams and wetlands that happen during road and bridge construction near the Pearl River Basin. These wetlands help protect the quality of the river’s water.
The land was purchased by MDOT in 2009. It was originally owned by International Paper, that is located between Lakeland Drive and the Ross Barnett Reservoir.
