I am hoping to avoid technical problems with this post and am recycling some materials that do not have to be linked for now. Here goes:
Text mostly from: “There is a Record Flood coming to South Louisiana”
Posted on May 6, 2011 by franksummers3ba
This is facebook note containing an earlier post from this blog:
There is a record flood coming to South Louisiana. This crest of high water will probably hit us around the week of May 18-25. The Mississippi River will bring the vastness of these waters in the upper and middle reaches of its course down on us. I think we also have to consider the risk of these natural conditions being made worse by human action in these dangerous times.
I am often critical of wetlands and water policy but I do think the Bonne Carre and Morganza Spillways have some things that they do well. I hope that they and even the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MR GO) will be able to handle the water crisis better than it was handled in 1927. Of course alot of bad human action made the floods of 1927 worse than they needed to be.
What follows is a blog post from my WordPress blog in October of 2009. I want to say that it is not about dealing with two hundred year floods primarily. However, I may comment on it later or mention it in a future post and discuss how huge intake of water could have been distributed through the infrastructure I describe here. Of course we cannot do these things in two weeks. However, it reminds us of some issues we need to address. I ENCOURAGE EVERYONE IN THE FLOOD PLAIN OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AT LEAST TO PREPARE TO EVACUATE. But here is my post on topic:
Family on False River Louisiana Vacation there is recreational value in water policy
“Ideal Wetlands Policy on the Louisiana Coast
Posted on October 2, 2009 by franksummers3ba
I have decided to address the issues of wetlands conservation in Louisiana briefly in this post. In the past I have conspired for significant political change which would address the challenge of wetlands and coastal preservation and restoration along with many other issues that would be addressed only in the context of some very large political changes. This post is sort of an admission of defeat compared to those nearly forgotten goals. On the other hand it is for more than I am ever likely to see happen.
1. I would like to see some kind of stimulus fund used to by not one very large single tract but a series of many smaller tracts operated as a single National park with a total of perhaps 100,000 acres in all from the Atchafalya Swamp, the Chandeleur Islands, Cheniere Au Tigre, Grand Isle, Vermilion Bay’s coast, the Mississippi natural levees, and Ile des Dernier among other places.
2. I would like to see each oil and gas drilling and production corporation which has a part in developing the resources of Louisiana’s share of the Gulf madeto participate or have its own artificial barrier island. Each of these would have to include a fish hatchery, a wetlands plants nursery and an artificial beach as well as a grassy wetlands section of several times the dry acreage on the inland side of the island. These islands would also have to hold a clinic, a regional drilling office, serve as a juncture for pipelines and have a public docks and small hotel. On the gulfside of the islands the corporations must operate or lease out underwater habitats and laboratories joined to a central umbilicus running up the island. The islands must be built of at least eighty percent certified clean waste such as wrecks, broken concrete, compressed and sealed garbage and other materials.
3. A Louisiana State Park should be set up in long lanes connected to several giant purification and oxidation farms worked by convicts and detainees as well as other workers. Part of this farm would be leased out as cattle pasture to offset expenses. As much as possible of emergency drainage and partialy cleaned sewerage would go from the cities of South Louisiana to these farms. After going through a simple plant and oxidation ponds the waters would go through an artificial eco system until reaching the park lanes. These lanes would resort to canals and pipes where necessary but would generaly run as continous fishing, hunting and camping stips of wetlands and coulees depositing their flow after natural work into the Gulf waters.
sketch of some water and coastal policy plans
4.The lanes would enter the fully flooded areas and there would be an artificial long island causeway with many breaks through which as many as possible future pipelines should be run. The surface of this would have to be ninety percent suitable and reseved for ither simple recreational use or pure wildlife reservation.
5. There would be a designated spillway zones between the island causeway and the ends of the lanes. These zones would have a concentration of wetlands preserves, erosion fences and jetties and all of the storm water pumps sediment rich floods and excess waters which could not be used in ordinary diversions would be pumped ad diverted into these areas. The state would also operate commercial species hatcheries and nurseries for seafood supported by a special tax and operate lease and overseen new oysterbeds in this zone.
6. When this was done a series of sites for artificial islands set in between and landward from the oil and gas islands would be leased to casino resorts.
7. A series of levees and canals would be built around and between the lanes which would try to use existing structures and make a coherent feature of wildlife, wetlands, transit and drainage policies.
I expect things would be far from perfect if we did all of this. However, I also expect this is far better than the horror to which we are headed and have always been headed.”
See also any information about the Atchafalaya including myu own here in the blog’s glossary:
Atchafalaya One of the largest riverine estuaries in North America. Probably still the largest. The traditional Aboriginal American territory of the Chitimacha or Chetimache people. It produces a great deal of the crawfish, fur, alligator meat, fresh water fish, retting moss, sunken cured cypress, ecotourism revenues and freshwater sports fishing revenues for the State of Louisiana. It is the place where many of the most important Aboriginal American archaeological sites have been found. The area is sacred to the Chetimache traditional religion and retains a sacral character among Chitimacha, Acadian and Creols of Colors who within the context of an orthodox Catholic Christianity inculturate the Gospel into folk religious sensibilities.The Cajun or Acadian presence and involvement in the Atchafalaya has been documented in the Leslye Abbey film Angels of the Basin by Snowflake Productions. I feel this film started off as the sort of subtle anti-Acadian propaganda which even Acadians end up making in the mainstream American sewer of anti-Acadian propaganda. However, the coming of Katrina tended to confirm what the crawfishermen and others were saying about the death of this great South Louisiana region and its effect on the whole state and region. The main Acadian contention at varied levels of organization has been that we must invest in fresh water circultaion and intake infrastucture. I myself have put out a variety of plans for this sort of thing which are not as radical or expensive as the get-rich-quick petroleum boys always like to portray them as being. Rather the mainstream postion is simply pillaging, genocidal and wanton piracy”
Obviously this whole field of concern is very emotionally charged for me and it is even more so for many others…
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