Mississippi Today
Curdled creek: Kosciusko residents sour over town’s milky lagoon

KOSCIUSKO – About once a year, usually as the late Mississippi winter hits, a peculiar odor wafts into the homes of residents on the east side of Kosciusko.
“It’s the equivalent to the smell of a bad perm, like when people used to get perms and it would smell like burning hair,” described resident Amanda DuBard. “And it is so strong, you can’t breathe.”
DuBard said in February that her kids, who she homeschools, had headaches for a week.
“Honestly, I would sell my house today just because of the smell,” she said.
Robert Black, another resident in the neighborhood, said this year’s stench was as bad as any one prior, and even woke him up one morning around 5 a.m.
“I’m not one to voice (issues), you know, I usually let it go,” Black said. “But they’ve had enough time to figure out the problem and get it resolved.”

The culprit, Kosciusko’s officials and residents agree, is a 20-acre, murky colored lagoon, tucked behind some forest along the Natchez Trace Parkway. It’s one of several the town has to store and treat wastewater before releasing it into the Yockanookany River.
The lagoon in question, though, is almost entirely made up of waste from a nearby dairy plant owned by company Prairie Farms, according to Kosciusko Mayor Tim Kyle. The Illinois-based business, which makes milk, cheese and other dairy goods, bought the facility from local dairy company LuVel in 2007.
“I would say probably 99% of the volume in that (lagoon) comes from (Prairie Farms),” Kyle told Mississippi Today. “There’s a lot of milk and other products that go in that thing, and I’ll tell you, I’ve learned more about sewer than I ever wanted to know.”
The plant, which Kyle said employs about 125 people and is a major economic asset for the small city, jacked up its production about five years ago. The mayor said that’s around when the odor issues began, while DuBard and other residents say it’s been closer to 10 years.
“I initially started complaining about it publicly in 2014,” said Emily Bennett, who lives two miles from the sewage spot and also said she gets headaches from the odor. “It’s progressively just gotten worse over the years.”

Records from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality show a dozen complaints the agency has received since 2021, several of which mention residents feeling sick from the smell.
“I don’t know what it’s doing to us, but it can’t be good for us,” Black said. “Everyone says, ‘Get fresh air, get Vitamin D,’ and you go out and (the odor) hits you in the face.”
Kyle, who was elected mayor in 2021 after serving as an alderman, lives less than half a mile from the lagoon. Around February or March of last year, he remembered, the smell from the lagoon was especially pungent after a malfunction at the Prairie Farm facility.
“Prairie Farms did notify us that they accidentally broke a valve unloading a truck, and they dumped a full tanker load of milk into that lagoon at once,” the mayor recalled. “Now, you couldn’t hardly live in this town for about six weeks, it was so bad. I mean, it would gag you to death, it’s horrible.”
Kyle said he’s worked with the MDEQ to limit the amount of waste the plant’s allowed to dump in its permit. Prairie Farms buys 4 million gallons of water per day to wash its waste into the lagoon, he said.
MDEQ spokesperson Jan Schaeffer said the agency couldn’t comment as it has a pending enforcement case against Prairie Farms. Since November, 2022, the state has cited the facility for five violations dealing with the content of its sewage disposal.

The facility’s wastewater repeatedly exceeded limits for “biological oxygen demand,” or BOD, which is a way of showing how much organic waste is in water. One test result from February 2023 showed Prairie Farm’s BOD output reaching over 16 times the legal limit.
In January, when MDEQ issued the most recent violation, the agency told Prairie Farms that it was in “significant non-compliance,” and that the case was being turned over to MDEQ’s enforcement branch.
The dairy company, which did not respond to Mississippi Today’s requests for a comment, has had similar waste issues elsewhere. At a Prairie Farms location in Iowa, state regulators found that the company regularly exceeded limits for wastewater contaminants for a five-year stretch.
Kosciusko’s Public Works Director Howard Sharkey showed Mississippi Today around the lagoon, and explained the various methods the city’s used to try to curb the odor. Its main strategy, Sharkey said, has been adding oxygen. The reason the smell is so bad during the colder months, he said, is because there’s less oxygen coming from the sun.
Five years ago, the city spent $240,000 on aerators, including one attached to a tractor that Sharkey runs non-stop to keep the device turning. That’s in addition to the 40 bags of sodium nitrate he dumps into the lagoon every month.
All of those expenses, he said, are just ways to create more oxygen. Of the roughly seven feet of depth in the lagoon, Sharkey added, two feet of that is just sludge that’s built up over the years.

“We’ve done everything (MDEQ) has told us we could do in the past to try to alleviate this,” Kyle said. “It’s not like the city’s not doing anything.”
In all, the mayor said the city – which has a population just over 7,000 – spends about $212,000 a year just on that one lagoon.
But new funding will give Kosciusko one more chance to eradicate the foul odor: Kyle said the city recently received $1.6 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to make infrastructure fixes, and that the plan is to spend all of it on dredging the lagoon, as well as raising its walls so it can fit more water to dilute the waste. The mayor said he hopes to have a contractor working on the project by the fall.
Whatever it takes, Kyle hopes to cleanse the area of its reputation.
“Every time anybody comes through town, it’s ‘what’s that smell?’” he said. “Ducks won’t even land on the lagoon it smells so bad.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
1964: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was formed
April 26, 1964

Civil rights activists started the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge the state’s all-white regular delegation to the Democratic National Convention.
The regulars had already adopted this resolution: “We oppose, condemn and deplore the Civil Rights Act of 1964 … We believe in separation of the races in all phases of our society. It is our belief that the separation of the races is necessary for the peace and tranquility of all the people of Mississippi, and the continuing good relationship which has existed over the years.”
In reality, Black Mississippians had been victims of intimidation, harassment and violence for daring to try and vote as well as laws passed to disenfranchise them. As a result, by 1964, only 6% of Black Mississippians were permitted to vote. A year earlier, activists had run a mock election in which thousands of Black Mississippians showed they would vote if given an opportunity.
In August 1964, the Freedom Party decided to challenge the all-white delegation, saying they had been illegally elected in a segregated process and had no intention of supporting President Lyndon B. Johnson in the November election.
The prediction proved true, with white Mississippi Democrats overwhelmingly supporting Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who opposed the Civil Rights Act. While the activists fell short of replacing the regulars, their courageous stand led to changes in both parties.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi River flooding Vicksburg, expected to crest on Monday
Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer said Friday floodwaters from the Mississippi River, which have reached homes in and around Vicksburg, will likely persist until early May. Elfer estimated there areabout 15 to 20 roads underwater in the area.
“We’re about half a foot (on the river gauge) from a major flood,” he said. “But we don’t think it’s going to be like in 2011, so we can kind of manage this.”
The National Weather projects the river to crest at 49.5 feet on Monday, making it the highest peak at the Vicksburg gauge since 2020. Elfer said some residents in north Vicksburg — including at the Ford Subdivision as well as near Chickasaw Road and Hutson Street — are having to take boats to get home, adding that those who live on the unprotected side of the levee are generally prepared for flooding.



“There are a few (inundated homes), but we’ve mitigated a lot of them,” he said. “Some of the structures have been torn down or raised. There are a few people that still live on the wet side of the levee, but they kind of know what to expect. So we’re not too concerned with that.”
The river first reached flood stage in the city — 43 feet — on April 14. State officials closed Highway 465, which connects the Eagle Lake community just north of Vicksburg to Highway 61, last Friday.

Elfer said the areas impacted are mostly residential and he didn’t believe any businesses have been affected, emphasizing that downtown Vicksburg is still safe for visitors. He said Warren County has worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency to secure pumps and barriers.
“Everybody thus far has been very cooperative,” he said. “We continue to tell people stay out of the flood areas, don’t drive around barricades and don’t drive around road close signs. Not only is it illegal, it’s dangerous.”
NWS projects the river to stay at flood stage in Vicksburg until May 6. The river reached its record crest of 57.1 feet in 2011.




This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Mississippi Today
With domestic violence law, victims ‘will be a number with a purpose,’ mother says
Joslin Napier. Carlos Collins. Bailey Mae Reed.
They are among Mississippi domestic violence homicide victims whose family members carried their photos as the governor signed a bill that will establish a board to study such deaths and how to prevent them.
Tara Gandy, who lost her daughter Napier in Waynesboro in 2022, said it’s a moment she plans to tell her 5-year-old grandson about when he is old enough. Napier’s presence, in spirit, at the bill signing can be another way for her grandson to feel proud of his mother.
“(The board) will allow for my daughter and those who have already lost their lives to domestic violence … to no longer be just a number,” Gandy said. “They will be a number with a purpose.”
Family members at the April 15 private bill signing included Ashla Hudson, whose son Collins, died last year in Jackson. Grandparents Mary and Charles Reed and brother Colby Kernell attended the event in honor of Bailey Mae Reed, who died in Oxford in 2023.
Joining them were staff and board members from the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the statewide group that supports shelters and advocated for the passage of Senate Bill 2886 to form a Domestic Violence Facility Review Board.
The law will go into effect July 1, and the coalition hopes to partner with elected officials who will make recommendations for members to serve on the board. The coalition wants to see appointees who have frontline experience with domestic violence survivors, said Luis Montgomery, public policy specialist for the coalition.
A spokesperson from Gov. Tate Reeves’ office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Establishment of the board would make Mississippi the 45th state to review domestic violence fatalities.
Montgomery has worked on passing a review board bill since December 2023. After an unsuccessful effort in 2024, the coalition worked to build support and educate people about the need for such a board.
In the recent legislative session, there were House and Senate versions of the bill that unanimously passed their respective chambers. Authors of the bills are from both political parties.
The review board is tasked with reviewing a variety of documents to learn about the lead up and circumstances in which people died in domestic violence-related fatalities, near fatalities and suicides – records that can include police records, court documents, medical records and more.
From each review, trends will emerge and that information can be used for the board to make recommendations to lawmakers about how to prevent domestic violence deaths.
“This is coming at a really great time because we can really get proactive,” Montgomery said.
Without a board and data collection, advocates say it is difficult to know how many people have died or been injured in domestic-violence related incidents.
A Mississippi Today analysis found at least 300 people, including victims, abusers and collateral victims, died from domestic violence between 2020 and 2024. That analysis came from reviewing local news stories, the Gun Violence Archive, the National Gun Violence Memorial, law enforcement reports and court documents.
Some recent cases the board could review are the deaths of Collins, Napier and Reed.
In court records, prosecutors wrote that Napier, 24, faced increased violence after ending a relationship with Chance Fabian Jones. She took action, including purchasing a firearm and filing for a protective order against Jones.
Jones’s trial is set for May 12 in Wayne County. His indictment for capital murder came on the first anniversary of her death, according to court records.
Collins, 25, worked as a nurse and was from Yazoo City. His ex-boyfriend Marcus Johnson has been indicted for capital murder and shooting into Collins’ apartment. Family members say Collins had filed several restraining orders against Johnson.
Johnson was denied bond and remains in jail. His trial is scheduled for July 28 in Hinds County.
He was a Jackson police officer for eight months in 2013. Johnson was separated from the department pending disciplinary action leading up to immediate termination, but he resigned before he was fired, Jackson police confirmed to local media.
Reed, 21, was born and raised in Michigan and moved to Water Valley to live with her grandparents and help care for her cousin, according to her obituary.
Kylan Jacques Phillips was charged with first degree murder for beating Reed, according to court records. In February, the court ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation to determine if he is competent to stand trial, according to court documents.
At the bill signing, Gandy said it was bittersweet and an honor to meet the families of other domestic violence homicide victims.
“We were there knowing we are not alone, we can travel this road together and hopefully find ways to prevent and bring more awareness about domestic violence,” she said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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