In August 2000, the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) agreed to be the lead agencies in a cooperative information-gathering effort regarding the natural resources of the Mississippi Delta region. This effort was intended to serve a variety of resource protection programs in the delta area, but was to be applied specifically to the pre-planning phases of a new highway slated to run through the Mississippi Delta: I-69.

The I-69 project was designated by Congress in 1991 as a high-priority corridor in ISTEA, connecting border crossings with Canada and Mexico and linking to the highway networks of these North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) trading partners. The corridor has been referred to as a “North American trade route,” filling a significant gap in the transportation system, serving increased traffic resulting from NAFTA, and supporting economic competitiveness. Although the broad corridor for the project is defined, the specific location has not been determined. The analyses now under way will assess alternative locations, their impacts, and mitigation measures before a final decision is made on the location of the highway.

This process is exemplary as a transportation planning effort in that environmental issues were addressed from the beginning, rather than after the fact with an environmental impact statement or a postdevelopment remediation. All available ecological data were collected from public and private agencies throughout the delta, in order to develop a model known as the “ecological framework,” which was used as a pre-planning decision-support model for environmental mitigation and protection.

Recognizing that successful protection of natural resources requires more than “spot” conservation of isolated areas, this framework attempts to identify not only highly valuable and sensitive ecological areas, but also the links between them. One of the greatest threats to the environment is the loss of ecosystem function due to fragmentation of protected areas. Roads, agriculture, and other development often lead to the cutting up of natural systems into smaller and smaller segments. Large, contiguous tracts of natural land are required not only for species habitat range, such as migratory birds or black bears, but also for healthy ecosystem function. Many ecological processes, such as water filtration and functional evolution require large areas of land, often spanning multiple land cover types. Viable landscape linkages are needed to connect these areas so that ecological processes and healthy functioning of the land are preserved. These linkages are also helpful in adding to the legibility of the regional-scale landscape (as discussed in Chapter 2).

The Mississippi Delta Ecological Framework is being developed to identify areas of high ecological value and their best potential linkages. In addition, the model will identify potential mitigation and restoration sites. Identifying these areas early on may greatly expedite permit, mitigation, and funding procedures.

Ecological Framework Methodology

Common goals and objectives were set, and roles were determined through cross-agency and organization partnerships. The objective was to compile a common data