For three years, because of prolonged flooding from the Mississippi River, staff at St. Catherine Creek NWR in southeastern Mississippi had been prohibited from planting trees. However, the Lower Mississippi River ecosystem team decided at a recent reforestation meeting that despite the refuge’s vulnerability to flooding, the team would dedicate all available resources to planting at St. Catherine Creek if the river held its banks until after January 1.

The 1999 planting season at St. Catherine Creek NWR began in earnest on January 6. For thirteen days, a team of refuge personnel from around the Southeast, along with several volunteers, worked 12 hours a day with 4 tractors and planters. Workers dedicated nearly 1,200 hours to reforestation efforts, not knowing when they would again have the opportunity to plant or when the river would rise and spill its banks.

Normally, the refuge begins to flood when the Natchez river gauge reaches 33 feet; two days after planting halted, the gauge read 35 feet.

Nine refuges, one wildlife habitat management office and two volunteers provided personnel or equipment or offered assistance in the effort. Two private companies provided money and resources for the operation. The two volunteers gave their time and energy willingly despite the fact that Jack Culpit missed the last two days of deer season and Dale Hill, whose son Nathan works at St. Catherine Creek, was supposed to be enjoying a vacation from wintry Minnesota.

Staff from Bayou Cocodrie, Noxubee, Yazoo, Lake Ophelia, Catahoula and D’Arbonne refuges and the Southeastern Louisiana Refuge Complex worked hard during the intensive planting effort, as did Ray Aycock of the Service’s Wildlife Habitat Management Office in Jackson, Mississippi, and Clyde Stewart, district forester for the Lower Mississippi ecosystem team.

In addition, American Forests, the National Tree Trust and a grant through the North American Wetlands Conservation Act provided funds and trees for the project.

On January 18, with the majority of the planting accomplished, planters and tractors went home, along with a group of people who had not seen their families in two weeks. By then, more than 250,000 trees, representing nearly 1,000 acres, had been compressed into the soil.

Jim Hall, St. Catherine Creek NWR, Sibley, Mississippi