The Disappearing of Louisiana, Part 5: The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya

The Atchaflaya River wants to capture the Mississippi River, and the Mississippi River wants to get caught.

But we are doing all we can to stop that union.

Old River Control Structures. Source: Urban Decay. Credit: US Army Corps of Engineers.

Not long after I moved to Louisiana in late 2013, one of my cultural informants, Michel, turned me on to a 1987 article: The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya.

It was written by John McPhee, published in The New Yorker.

The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya is long, but engrossing. It is WELL worth an investment of reading time.

But if you're in a super hurry, here's a fast-food, go-down-so-easy tasty video on the relentless struggle for control between us humans and the alliance of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers  below: Go ahead, watch it. It's only a couple of minutes long.

Why does this all remind me of an old 1960s song:

Atchafalaya

There's the:

1. Atchafalaya River, 
2. Atchafalaya Basin, aka Atchafalaya Swamp, and 
3. Atchafalaya Bay, aka Delta

The word "Atchafalaya" comes from the Choctaws, meaning "long river." The river is the 5th largest in North America by "discharge."

If the Mississippi were allowed to flow freely, the Atchafalaya would capture the main flow of the Mississippi, permitting the Mississippi to bypass its current path through Baton Rouge and New Orleans. (Credit: wikipedia)


Below is an archival movie, not about the Atchafalaya, but its favored sister, the Mississippi

The River (1937), still shown in academic venues today, for its historic, environmental, anthropological, economic, and artistic values:

"Shows the importance of the Mississippi River to the United States, and how farming and timber practices had cause topsoil to be swept down the river and into the Gulf of Mexico in the late 19th and early 20th centuries."

The narrative is an epic poem. Of beauty, of construction and destruction, of movement, transition, of change.

There is an image sequence of an axe chopping into the side of a living tree; it has the appearance of an assault on flesh. The suspenseful photography, narration, and sound to describe the birth and maturation of a flood builds a thrilling fear into the viewer.

Ah, the ending --> An eloquent manifesto of how we've damaged the Mississippi River Valley. But then, in the tradition of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions," the narrator concludes with this foreshadowing of unintended consequences:

"Flood control of the Mississippi means control in the Great Delta ... and the Old River can be controlled .. We had the power to take the Valley apart, we have the power to put it together again. In 1933, we started .... " 

Related posts

Disappearing Louisiana, Part 1: Stumbling on History
Disappearing Louisiana, Part 2: Water Words
Disappearing Louisiana, Part 3: Paradise Faded: The Fight for Louisiana
Disappearing Louisiana, Part 4: Revetments, Rip-rap, and Other Exotica
Disappearing Louisiana, Part 5: The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya

The Disappearing of Louisiana, Part 3: Paradise Faded: The Fight for Louisiana

Part 1: Stumbling on History
Part 2: Water Words



This 2007 documentary by Jared Arsement hammers in four solid messages:

1. South Louisiana is a strategic location for the reliable production and delivery of oil and gas to the United States, for fresh- and saltwater fishing, the export of midwestern agricultural products, and for the mitigation of weather-related disasters. 
2. Louisiana is literally disappearing into the sea, being subsumed by the Gulf of Mexico.
3. The disappearance of Louisiana results in the loss of people's land, homes, livelihoods, and the protection of major population centers from storms.
4. There are remedies to stop the disappearance, but there is insufficient political will to do so. 

Notes from the documentary: 

Every grain of soil that created the land mass we call Louisiana came from the American east and midwest.

Before 1927, the Mississippi River was like a hose filled with water that moves from side to side, distributing water and silt in a wide swath. 

Louisiana was a by-product of natural flooding.

Since 1927, instead of distributing the sediment throughout Louisiana, it all goes straight to the Gulf of Mexico. (This is because the Mississippi River was channelized.)

Between 1932 and 2000, Louisiana lost nearly 2000 square miles of wetlands. This is the size of Delaware.

Note: My understanding is that as it pertains to Louisiana, the "loss of wetlands" does not mean that there is still land where there used to be wetlands, and that it's just a different quality of land. My understanding is that there is no land, period. It is underwater. Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm mistaken.

Coastal Louisiana. Land loss/gain 1932-2050. Credit: USGS

Note: The red in the graphic above = land lost between 1932 and 2000. Light gray = land gained. Yellow = projected land loss by 2050. Green is projected land gain by 2050.

In the 1950s and 60s, thousands of miles of canals were dredged to accommodate the oil and gas pipeline needs. It likely was not known at that time that the canals would widen because of the dredging, which created deeper and straighter paths for fast water to travel, resulting in bank erosion and channel deepening, which made the canal deeper and wider, which enabled faster water, which ....

Southeast Louisiana. Land loss 1932-2050. Credit: USGS

 A system disintegrated: 

In the past, natural barriers protected Louisiana from the worst of storm destruction: 

1. Front line defense: Barrier (or channel) islands -> drowning in the Gulf
2. Second line of defense: Wetlands --> drowning via erosion and invasion of Gulf waters
3. Third line of defense: Levees --> by themselves, they aren't plentiful enough, stable enough, or high enough to protect people and infrastructure

How do they help? 

Barrier (or channel) islands are like speed bumps - they slow the progress of a tropical storm. 

Barrier islands are narrow strips of land that parallel the coastline and consist of a variety of fine sediments and particulate matter. A barrier island is separated from land by a shallow bay or lagoon and can stretch for tens of miles.

Barrier islands are narrow strips of land that parallel the coastline and consist of a variety of fine sediments and particulate matter. A barrier island is separated from land by a shallow bay or lagoon and can stretch for tens of miles. Source: Rockbandit.

Barrier islands are narrow strips of land that parallel the coastline and consist of a variety of fine sediments and particulate matter. A barrier island is separated from land by a shallow bay or lagoon and can stretch for tens of miles.

How barrier islands protect mainland. Source: University of Texas.

In turn, the wetlands suck energy from the storm by:

• Reducing wind speed; and 
• Adding friction to the surge, slowing it and weighing it down

From article in Times-Picayune. Graphic credit: SE Louisiana Flood Protection District

2.7 miles of wetlands can reduce storm surge by one foot. 

The levees protect people and property (if the islands and wetlands are there to do their part).


Remedies

Talking heads in the documentary cited: 

• Small and large diversions from the Mississippi River channel as it drops through Louisiana (to recapture sediment that is otherwise dumped through into the Gulf) - this would maintain and rebuild land. 
• Opening and closing channel gates using the Dutch model of flood management 
• Restoration of barrier and channel islands

Henry Hub

Henry Hub is in/near the small town of Erath, Louisiana.

To illuminate the strategic importance of Louisiana's geological stability, the documentary noted the Henry Hub, place where natural gas prices are set.

From investopedia: 

A natural gas pipeline located in Erath, Louisiana that serves as the official delivery location for futures contracts on the NYMEX. The Henry Hub is owned by Sabine Pipe Line LLC and has access to many of the major gas markets in the United States. As of June 2007, the hub connects to four intrastate and nine interstate pipelines, including the Transcontinental, Acadian and Sabine pipeline.

The Henry Hub pipeline is the pricing point for natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The NYMEX contract for deliveries at Henry Hub began trading in 1990 and are deliverable 18 months in the future. The settlement prices at the Henry Hub are used as benchmarks for the entire North American natural gas market.

The take-away 

In addition to defining the issues, the documentary made these clear arguments for the fixes:

• Louisiana has the knowledge, experience, and technology to freeze or roll back the disappearing of Louisiana. 
• Louisiana doesn't have the money to do it. 
• At the time the movie was made (2007), there wasn't the national political will to help Louisiana do it. 

Louisiana argues that this is not a Louisiana emergency - it is a national emergency.


Related posts

Disappearing Louisiana, Part 1: Stumbling on History
Disappearing Louisiana, Part 2: Water Words
Disappearing Louisiana, Part 3: Paradise Faded: The Fight for Louisiana
Disappearing Louisiana, Part 4: Revetments, Rip-rap, and Other Exotica
Disappearing Louisiana, Part 5: The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya

Louisiana Road Trip 2011, Part 3: To Vicksburg

Highway 1, Mississippi

Checked out of my cabin at Leroy Percy State Park. Glorious sunny day. I asked the staff person which road was prettier to drive down to Vicksburg, Highway 1 or 61. She said 1, so that's the way I went.

Highway 61 is the Mississippi Blues Trail; Highway 1 is the Mississippi River Trail.

As I passed flat, bright-green fields of ... winter wheat? .... with tree stands in the distance, I listened to a slow, beat-ful song by Ali Farke Toure, which seems to reflect the rhythm of the Delta. I don't know why the flatness of the Delta evokes different feelings than the flatness of, say, Kansas, but it does. Maybe the mixture of spilled blood and rich river soil that brings up stories, written or sung, and deep rhythms.

This song came up during my drive (from my new "Mix 1" created last night) --- Nana Mouskouri singing Casta Diva --- and it fit the Delta, too:

Didn't do much today except drive from the park to Vicksburg, about an hour and a half trip. Checked into the Battlefield Inn, which is right next to the Vicksburg National Military Park. The reviews on Tripadvisor were all over the place, so I wanted to look at a room before I forked over any bucks. (Did the same thing at the hotel in Oklahoma City on a trip with Carol.) The room was adequate for my needs and I quickly set up housekeeping.

I'm reading a selection from my dwindling stockpile of classic science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke's book of stories, The Wind From the Sun.

Louisiana Road Trip 2011, Part 2: Gators and Greenville

Alligator Lake, Leroy Percy State Park, Mississippi

Leroy Percy State Park

I awakened this morning to a beautiful lake and wood view from my cabin at Leroy Percy State Park. (Remember the Percy name for later.) The lake is Alligator Lake, and gators do live here, though this time of year, they're likely snuggled under mud for a long winter nap. Still, the park staff told me that on especially warm and sunny winter days, some gators emerge to enjoy the sunshine.

Cabin 2, Leroy Percy State Park, Mississippi

Cabin 2, Leroy Percy State Park, Mississippi

Cabin 2 porch, Leroy Percy State Park, Mississippi

View of Alligator Lake from Cabin 2 screened porch, Leroy Percy State Park, Mississippi

Cabin 2 backyard, Leroy Percy State Park, Mississippi

Beautiful, yes?

Alas, the two park trails were too sodden for walking, so off to Greenville I went.

Greenville

Greenville is on the Mississippi Blue Trail ...and the Hot Tamale Trail.

Remember, a week or so ago, Carol and I made an abortive attempt to get us some Delta-style tamales. Today, mission accomplished at Greenville's Hot Tamale Heaven.

Yes, they tasted good. Pretty much like tamales in the Southwest, I think. But I'm not a tamale connoisseur.  

I ate them in the parking lot of the Winterville Mounds, a mildly interesting Indian site from the 1300s-ish.

I climbed atop one of the mounds. Reminded me of the ruins near Tlaxcala that I visited with Kate and Pam. What a walk that was from one set of ruins to the other! The Xochitécatl ruins looked so close!

View of Xochitécatl ruins from the Cacaxtl ruins, near Tlaxcala, Mexico

The endless walk.

The long walk from the Cacaxtl ruins to the Xochitecatl pyramids, near Tlaxcala, Mexico

And finally. The view from one of the Xochitécatl pyramids:

View from Xochitecatl pyramid, near Tlaxcala, Mexico

The view from the Winterville Mound isn't as dramatic as that from the Xochitécatl pyramid. But it was fun remembering that day in Mexico while I looked out over the green Mississippi flood plain.

Despite my recent epiphany about museums, the 1927 Greenville Flood Museum looked intriguing. The museum is in the carriage house of a former plantation. In fact, this carriage house is believed to be the oldest structure in Greenville (the oldest still surviving, that is). Mike Bostic, the museum docent, screened a PBS documentary about the 1927 Greenville flood, called Fatal Flood, which told a disturbing story about how economics, man's inhumanity against man, and family betrayal factored into the town's flood response. Remember Leroy Percy? He and his son, Will Percy, played a prominent role in the story of the flood. One of the people interviewed in the documentary was John Barry, who wrote Rising Tide: The Great
Mississippi Flood of 1927 and how it Changed America. Apparently, the surviving Percys were livid about Barry's portrayal of them in the book.

Mike and I had a short but interesting conversation about "Southern writers." I didn't know this, but there is evidently so much cachet attached to being a "Southern writer" that there are authors who perhaps exaggerate their Southern ties so they can self-identify as such.  (When will the stalwart Midwesterners get their deserved glory?)


Next I went to the Cypress Preserve, a pretty park with a trail through a virgin stand of cypress. As I walked, I breathed in the pungent fragrance of fallen cypress needles.


 















Getting rid of stuff. It was almost dark when I returned to my cabin. I spent an enjoyable evening decluttering the music list on my laptop and mp3 player, culling songs and musicians I no longer wanted to hear.
For example, I could not abide the no-nuance voice of blueswoman Susan Tedeschi one more day.

And though I love Carolina Chocolate Drops, I have come to despise Trampled Rose, one of the songs on their Genuine Negro Jig album. (I loathe the song so much that I had a story in my head that went like this: One of the Drops guys didn't feel as if he'd gotten his share in the group's limelight, so he complained and complained to the other two about how he'd written this song, and they owed it to him to record the awful thing, and they gave in. I didn't know til today that the damn song is actually an old standby and multiple artists have covered it. For God's sake, why?)

Now gone, all gone. Very satisfying.

Talking about Carolina Chocolate Drops gives me the excuse to play a favorite, Snowden's Jig:

 

Alton, IL: Fast Eddie's, the Golden Bridge, and the Great Mississippi River

Melvin Price Locks and Dam, Alton, Illinois

Carol and I took an overnight trip to Alton, Illinois last week.

To get there, we took I-70, then got off the highway in St. Charles so we could ride through the river bottom lands on Highway 94. We saw a vast field of yellow flowers beneath giant electrical constructs.

Clark Bridge, Alton, IL

The Clark Bridge into Alton gleams like high-karat gold. It is simple and graceful; beautiful. 

Matt told me that Nova did a show on the building of this bridge.

Fast Eddie's, Alton, IL

First, we went to Fast Eddie's for lunch. My mother, Carol, remembers going to Fast Eddie's some 50 years ago. It serves pretty much the same menu: burgers, kebobs, shrimp, and brats. Plus fries. The food is pretty good, and it's ridiculously cheap. Carol's burger was only a buck, and it was a big damn burger. The business recoups with its drinks. It is common for there to be a line of people out into the street, waiting to get into Fast Eddie's. If I were to visit again, I'd like to go when there's music; otherwise, it's a rather tame place.


The Melvin Price Locks and Dam is the penultimate locks-and-dam going down the Mississippi River.

Melvin Price Locks and Dam, Alton, Illinois

 

Melvin Price Locks and Dam, Alton, Illinois

I took a walking tour of same and saw American pelicans there, taking a break from their migration.

Melvin Price Locks and Dam, Alton, Illinois

There were interesting shapes and shadows and angles in the locks and dam.

 

A turtle floated down the river on a dead log. The tour guide said that a barge regularly pushes accumulated debris downriver from the locks and dam.



 



There's a cool museum by the locks and dam - the National Great Rivers Museum.  The coolest thing is the simulator that lets you try to guide a barge through the locks.

National Great Rivers Museum, Alton, Illinois

Both the locks and dam and the museum are alongside the Great Rivers Scenic Byway.

We had dinner at the Riviera Maya restaurant out on Homer Adams Parkway. Surprisingly good Mexican restaurant. It offered the standard Americanized, "authentic," Mexican menu, but the restaurant did it well, taking the trouble to raise the usual rice and beans sides above the plate-filler level of quality. Good service.

The next day, we lunched at Just Desserts in downtown Alton. Loved being able to watch the river rolling by outside the windows. The place had received a heartfelt reference from a local, who waxed poetic on the pies. Neither Carol nor I tried the pie. I had a so-so salad. Carol had a quiche that was good, but not as good as what she makes herself. The potato soup, however, prompted a big thumbs-up.


 
We poked into a used book store in downtown Alton.

Clark Bridge, Alton, IL

On the way home, we saw a family fishing on the Missouri side of the Clark Bridge. They said they'd be happy with anything, but were especially hopeful for catfish.

Clark Bridge, Alton, IL

The bridge looks just as pretty underneath as it does on top.











I sure like Alton. It's got the elements I like in a small town --> strong and interesting city core; lots of trees in old neighborhoods; diverse architectural styles in the well-cared-for historic housing stock;  a vibrant artistic community; a nearby body of water. Best of all, you get the best of two worlds in Alton - you're really close to a large city (St. Louis), with all of its attractions, but far enough way to get the advantage of a quieter, more serene space. Alton's got the bonus of having a scenic byway running through it.