Just before McCall Creek joins from the east, the Homochitto is crossed by two bridges, one for U.S. Route 84 and one for the Illinois Central Railroad.

Several miles downriver from there, the river becomes the boundary between Franklin and Amite counties, at which point it begins to flow more directly westward.

Today most of the Homochitto's water flows instead west from Doloroso, through the Abernathy Channel created in 1938 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Additional cutoffs between Doloroso and Rosetta were constructed in 1940, reducing the river's channel by about 4 miles (6 km).

Other flood control projects on the lower Homochitto, completed in 1952, included the cleaning and desnagging of the main channel, as well as the excavation of more cutoffs.

They had unintended consequences, as engineers did not fully understand river dynamics when undertaking these projects.

Since the channelization projects were completed, the lower Homochitto River and several of its tributaries have been degraded at an accelerated rate.