The Vicksburg District has had ample opportunity to prove its engineering expertise through more than the construction of levees, dams, and harbors. District interest also includes environmental protection and restoration, recreation, water resources development, and many other areas. The district has found innovative answers to many questions, setting standards for engineering nationwide. For better than 60 years, silt- and pesticide- laden runoff was channeled into Lake Chicot, the largest natural lake in Arkansas. Most of the sport aquatic life was killed and the lake filled slowly with silt. The $90-million Lake Chicot Pumping Plant project, including auxiliary structures, keeps poor quality water from entering the lake, channeling it to the Mississippi River instead. The project, designed to return life to the lake, will enhance the overall quality of life in a three-state area and includes other considerations such as flood control, water supply, and recreation in addition to environmental restoration.

Each district lake has qualities which benefit the public. The nationally recognized Lake Ouachita Geo-Float Trail guides boaters around the lake, highlighting and describing many geological formations unique to the area. The trail calls attention to the special beauty of the area and gives visitors an increased understanding of the formation of the Ouachita Mountains. The trail was the first water-based interpretive trail included in the National Trails System.

Downtown Monroe, Louisiana, faced a difficult flooding problem prior to the 1970s. Floodwalls and levees, completed in the mid- 1930s, protected the city from the Ouachita River with the exception of a 1,750-foot gap in the heart of the business district. This gap was filled with an ultramodern floodwall designed by the Vicksburg District that provides adequate protection and an unobstructed, aesthetically pleasing view of the river. The cantilevered design of the floodwall allows it to serve as a sidewalk when not raised against a flood.

DeGray Dam was the first Corps hydropower dam using a pump-back, reversible generator to ensure an ample water supply for peak-load power generation. Though used for years in Europe, pump-back generators have only recently become economically competitive in the United States. Realizing that rain might not always replenish water used for power generation, reversible turbines are used to pump water from a storage reservoir below the dam back up to the power pool for reuse.

The Corps has found a way to make a river's destructive force work to stop erosion, especially along the Red River in Louisiana and Arkansas. Trenchfill revetment uses the natural tendency of a river to cut its banks to simplify the placement of stone bank protection. A trench is dug on dry land along the desired channel alignment and filled with stone. The current of the river continues to cut into the old bank until, eventually, the stone-filled trench is reached. When the stone is undercut, it falls to cover the bank, preventing further erosion.

Today's challenges are more complex and controversial. The Vicksburg District of the 21st century is using engineers, planners, and environmental staff to redesign ongoing projects to make them more environmentally friendly, and design other projects to restore environmental areas diminished by man over the years.

The resources of the Vicksburg District are also being called upon by local and state Governments to support their engineering efforts under new programs that permit the Corps to assist in ways never before possible.