I whole-heartedly agree with you. This is why I spend every chance I get in the marsh. But, do not sit idly by. Get involved with an organization that wants to restore our coast. Write your legislators. Take people who don't normally see the marsh out to the marsh. Educate the blissfully ignorant.

Yes I beling to groups such as vanishing paradise DU and other such groups and write government officials, but that has been happening for years. Lets be honest if the voice of the sportsman had been heard the MRGO would've been closed long ago and the west bay diversion in Venice would not be getting shut down. The facts and science are there to begin rebuilding look at the atchafalaya and wax lake deltas. however, the words research and studying are thrown around to simply appease us while in actuality nothing is bein done; idk why this is the case but it is. You can even go on the Louisiana coastal master plan page and see how far behind the corps of engineers are on projects. Not to sound overly pessimistic, I'm just simply looking at the facts of this situation.

studies, research and planning and no action??? how else do the politicians and their bro-in-laws make so much money for their pockets??? how do you track the money they are spending on studying stuff????? u can track actual physical work, but how do you track studying??

I agree with abeast and redfish .Basically all talk and no action.'They' will be still studying for the next 50 years.Save what we have left and then worry about creating and rebuilding.I hope i am gone by then because what they plan on doing around Delacroix by making Canarveron like the Bonne Care spillway ,you will never see a trout in that area again.Just my 2 cents

Coming from many directly involved in the coastal restoration project process. Most of the proposed projects are shot down by the surprisingly powerful oyster fisherman. The proposed projects involve sediment/freshwater diversion which would destroy hundreds of acres of now leased oyster beds. Funny thing is that most of the oyster beds in certain areas used to be covered in cypress trees!!

Sorry Capt Kim, but you will be faced with a choice. Would you prefer to catch trout in areas that were historically freshwater cypress swamps or have a coast? It stinks and is inconvenient, but most important issues are. If we can't agree amongst ourselves then how can we ever expect the rest of the nation to back us.

OVER,
Man has created this mess,but man cannot fix it.It took nature thousands of years to build the coastal marsh and man has destroyed in less than 100 yrs.Man wants to rebuild the coast over night it won't happen.
Why can't we simply start by saving what is already left,then star tdoing things to rebuild.
The Carnarvon freshwater diverson system has caused more land loss than the natural loss of land in the last few years.The fresh water marsh is not stong enough to withstand a hurricane.Katrina proved that and even Isaac caused land loss near the project.
It is all about POLITICS...my take on it.

Capt Kim I grew up fishing Delacroix for trout wth my dad and it will be inconvenient to have to go further out for them but hopefully the ends will justify the inconvenient and more expenssive means..especially for someone of your profession. And yea the diversion in caernarvon is flawed because it barel let's through any sediment, only freshwater. So while the freshwater helps its kinda just half of what's needed. I just know that the proof is in he pudding with fresh AND sediment diversions via wax lake delta...however I'm not down playing the affects it will have on inshore fishin around Delacroix...but nothing will be done most likely until its all gone and it's really too late because certain groups of people have the ability to snag up the restoration process...example is the shipping industry not likening the land that's being produced in west bay(which was entire point of diversion) so it's being closed

Since the Oyster fishermen lease the bedding ground from the state, I would like to see the state revoke the leases and get to work.

It still comes down to who has the deepest pockets and the loudest voice to start or end a project.POLITICS wins everytime....

You lost me at freshwater helps.

When your ready for a boat ride so I can show you why it doesn't work let me know

Lucky,Even if you took him on a ride and showed him the devastation,he will say it still works...I agree with you 100%

Lucky, the reason it is not working is because it is not allowed to work. The freshwater diversions are only opened when salinity is at a certain level which is not very often. So we have a multi-million dollar diversion that sits idle. If the state would implement sediment diversion and open them when the river is high and heavy with sediment we could see noticeable improvement in a few years.

As far as freshwater goes, think about this. Before the hurricane all the duck ponds were FULL of grass. This grass holds the existing sediment in place just like in your front yard. After the surge of high salinity saltwater the grass is dead and gone and the very fine silt is subject to erosion.

The solution is there staring us in the face, we just refuse to accept it. The river will save us or destroy us.

I'm not disagreeing by saying the freshwater is building land, but it does promote grass growth...it's like oil for your engine...yea oil is needed for it to run, but if you put it in the gas tank it will do more harm than good lol..which is basically what is being done now the diversion(Delacroix) isn't bein used appropriately. Sediment builds land fresh water gets the grass growing..have you ever been to the wax? That's probably the only reason I buy into the hole fresh/sediment diversion idea, that place was open water 30 years ago and now look at it...and capt Kim Im not irrationale to say take me for a ride I'd never beleive it isn't being used right or helping I've been there I've seen it, I agree, that diversion isn't really helping save marsh land it just keeps the area full of grass...

Ill be out there riding for duck season contact me and we'll meet up...it's impossible to understand tone reading these posts. I'm not trying to be rude or indifferent Inwant to see it saved as much as anyone and I'm just basing all of my thought and talk off reading and mostly what I've seen at the wax and atchafalaya deltas....it's either roll the dice by building real diversions like over there or roll the dice Doing nothing...and we see how that's turned out :/. No hard feelings

The only grass it grows is in water up to about 3ft.One storm like Isaac and it is gone.If you are talking about grass on the marsh,i do not see that happening anywhere in the delacroix area.

Yes I'm referring to the widgeon grass...marsh grass no, like we all agree on that diversion in Delacroix isn't building land...and unfortunately ur right storm blows out all the good aquatic vegitation

It does grow grass in the water but it kills the marsh grass it helps in other places where it is freshwater marsh we have saltwater marsh and when you pump freshwater onto saltwater marsh it kills it just like the saltwater from storm surges kills freshwater marsh in other areas yea if you look at the marsh around Delacroix where the fresh water flows it looks dead now since Isaac but if you take a boat ride just a little further out the marsh looks just fine and it was under the same saltwater for Isaac

We need dredges pumping mud to build land

Just email me when you come down

you tell me what good or what benefits does the the Carnarvon diverson do for the Delacroix area.

What is the answer ? Just curious , I know man has screwed up everything in nature that they have touched , but would bringing in barges full of dirt be the answer ?

Before man made it down to south La. the marsh was ever changing , and still is today . Same as the miss. river , there are oxbow lakes all up and down the river where the main channel of the miss. river once flowed .

Continents change and have been proven to change .

If we hauled dirt in and dumped it , do you think it would disappear also ? Would rock jetties be the answer ?

I've seen the marsh vanish , maybe not to the extent that you have , but just would like to know what your answer to fix the problem might be .

Not trying to argue but hear people complain and complain about the situation we have . Ive never really givin it much thought as how to fix the problem .

First i would save what is left before or at the sametime at least, what is left of the coast.I would would put rock barriers around the islands that are left and possibly make them larger by dredging or just filling them in via dumping mud.
Create new islands where old ones once were.The basic principal would be to save as much as we can before it is gone before trying to build or create land by means of diversons.

I agree to that , the rocks that have been put down never move , they've been rocks in the same places ever since I can remember .

The state hasn't done much to help , it seems whatever they have done has been beneficial to the state in some way . If somehow the only way they could get oil out of the gulf would be to restore the marsh and bring in dirt and rocks we would already have a mountain built along the Louisiana gulf coast .

I really don't think anything will ever be done to seriously restore the marsh , and if so we will be long gone before they do anything that really helps .

Let us assume Caernarvon is in fact responsible for massive local land loss because the new fresh marsh is more prone to erosion than the old brackish marsh was. Not arguing if it is or isn't, just assuming it is possible for this discussion. The cause (freshwater) and effect(land that can no longer withstand hurricanes/tidal erosion) should be fairly easily proven. The locals, guides, fishermen and duck hunters can see it plain as day....but they can't do anything to stop the destruction. On the other side the promoters of Caernarvon, many of whom are State and Federal employees with years and even careers invested in Caernarvon , will never acknowledge that it is a colossal failure which is destroying way more than it is helping.....unless they are forced to do so. After every storm this issue comes up but the government is not going to change course unless they are forced to do so. What if the landowners got together and sued the state for destroying their property, similar to the katrina lawsuits? Could a lawsuit force Caernarvon closed? Something has to force the issue because a few more years of studies and forums and there will be nothing left to study.

They will never admit it because the state is collecting millions every year from the Feds to operate the diversion and we all know that our elected officials don't care about the coast as much as they care about money

Def agree on saving what we have and sediment pumps...that's two things that you obviously couldn't go wrong with

The diversion was built with the intake pipes facing down river so it won't take in sediment it was to control salinity like you said you can run that diversion full speed at high river and you still won't get much sediment when it was first opened they ran it so hard Thea the vibration from it cracked the river levee that's why yo never see it at 12-15,000 cfs anymore but even then it never pumped much sediment it's been open over twenty years and they have never had to dredge the canal or any other areas around it and it is no shallower now than it was before the opened it

It has been a giant waste of our time our tax money and has destroyed more land in it twenty plus years than any storm or normal erosion could have done in 100 years and that's a fact

The outside marsh and also the biloxi marsh has changed very little in the same twenty plus years the diversion has been open yes there has been normal erosion but nothing like the catastrophic land loss than we have seen in marsh where that fresh water flows

Lucky, i agree with you 100%.

I don't think you could have said that any better taxi .. The beginning of the end was the building of the levees to hold back the mighty Mississippi .

The Mississippi river had hundreds of diversions before man came along , that pushed sediments and silt all over south Louisiana .

The new diversions that man has made are only test canals that scientist are playing around with just like you say taxi . If more are dug and used it may help little but hurt other things worse .

At this point in time , we can't exactly tear down the levees . In my opinion that would be the only fix , but it's too late .

I say dump loads of rock around islands and vital points and just try to preserve what we have left . You can't exactly replicate what has taken years and years to become .

Fish taxi you really hit the nail on the head with that one in my book ...

Fishfearme , I know the saltwater kills a lot of our trees but have y'all ever looked at aerial photos of manchac WMA , or Joyce , Maurepas swamp ?

There are thousands of old pull runs where they went in and raped the land of all the big cypress trees .

They say at one time lake Maurepas was full of trees to the point where it would have taken only a few minutes to paddle across the whole thing !

I've seen where I guess the state has gone in and tryed planting new trees with the PVC pipe sticking up all around the lake . Most have lil dead cypress trees hanging out of them or nothing at all .

It's all very sickening knowing how everything once was and how we've lost just about everything nature once had here .

Now like you say ffme , saltwater is getting any trees that the old lumber jacks left us . I sure would have liked to have seen how things once were . Can you imagine the game that was here ?

No I don't remember the trees , but I know there are thousands of stumps that go way off the lake beach .

I do remember the ducks ! Green heads as far as you can see in the lake . If you wanted to you could ride the lake with a dip net and catch all the ducks you could handle . We never did that but you could have if you wanted .

Most of y'all know by now that I am a commercial fisherman and no I don't dredge oysters but I do everything else I need that marsh land more than most people it protects my home from storm surge just like yours but it is also what puts money in my pocket food on my table and a roof over my head so I am all for rebuilding it or atleast doing whatever works to keep what we still have I make plenty of my money in or very near the fresh water so that is not why I hate that diversion it just doesn't work and for everyone saying the oyster fisherman won't let them pump freshwater is bull they run that diversion and the one in violet all of the time they are not running now only because the river is to low now you want to hear people scream and holler let the government decide to use the biggest diversion we already have year round like they do with all of the other diversions yes I'm talking about the bonnet carre spillway lets run that one all year I'm mean it's there its ready just open it up and let it flow.
O wait I forgot every time it has to be opened the lake pontchartrain basin foundation and the save the lake people scream and holler about how the fertilizers and other chemicals in the river water are going to ruin their precious lake with big algae blooms and low oxygen levels that will kill the fish but those are the same dam people who scream and holler about saving our coast by putting freshwater diversions everywhere else
So go ahead open Carnarvon and violet let them flow but why not use the bonnet carre also it won't cost anything it's already there open it up and let it flow every time they open up any of the other diversions.
Lake pontchartrain isn't any better than lake borgne Or lake lery so stop treating it like it's something special

Thats all they do is study and if you ask them what it's about most studys are for projects twenty years from now so that should tell you how much trouble we are in with a timeline like that

Hey no hurry we will get to it someday.