Exploring Grand Bayou

[jdupre']

It's been too long since I've been in the boat. Had a double hernia surgery 11 months ago and had to nurse that for a few months. I got a bit lazy and out of shape after that.

Got to the landing at my old hometown a little after daylight.

Went upcurrent (Ha!) about a half mile to an oilfield canal. This is a shot of the typical shoreline. Not very conducive to getting in and out of a kayak.

It's usually either that or this. Sawgrass.

You don't want to bully your way through this stuff. Think.....a couple of hundred paper cuts.

Paddled up the canal to where a pipeline crossed it and found some thistles. Haven't eaten any in 30 years. Didn't know them by any other name but "chadron" until I was a teenager. They taste similar to celery, but milder and sweeter. The young, light green ones about as big as your finger are the best. I brought a handful home, after CAREFULLY taking the stickers off.[

More later

Joey

 

[Kayak Jack]

As a kid, I could circle my finger and thumb, and slide up the stalk of those bull thistles and snap off the blossom. Most of the time - without impaling myself on those damned, pointy stickers. Other times, I missed. That's how the Irish style of River Dancing was invented.

 

[jdupre']

On the subject of pipelines. Obama doesn't want the pipeline to run through the Midwest from Canada. Enviornmental reasons, he says. In a mile of paddling, I passed no less than 6 pipeline rights-of-way. I drove past 3 more on the way home. My family has 23 acres of high ground 2 miles down Grand Bayou not accessible by car. There are NINE pipelines crisscrossing it. There are probably 10's of thousands of miles of pipelines in La. Sure, there are leaks and some enviornmental impact. But, the benefits outway the risks.

On a lighter note. I thought I'd give y'all a taste of what it's like to live right at sea level.

This is part of what we call a flat ridge. During normal water levels, it's perhaps 4 inches above water level. During higher springtime water levels, there might be a foot of water covering it. The trees there are basically high ground species but can take being flooded for a few months with little effect. There is also something we call a high swamp. A subtle difference, the trees are a mixture of swamp and high ground species. Might have a couple of inches of water on them for several months. So we have swamp, high swamp, flat ridge, and high ridge. Now a high ridge is about a foot above sea level or more. Wow! That's house building land there, boy!

Joey

 

[oldsparkey]

Your neck of the woods ................

Is about the same as ours along a lot of the water ways. We do have higher areas with sand bars but there are a lot of the lower camping area's full of those Cypress Knees...... The reason Hammocks ( were invented ) for camping.

 

[islandpiper]

Dang, wish i had been there, too. piper

 

[jdupre']

Well, I caught the thistles past their prime. Taste was OK but much too fibrous.

While paddling up a tiny canal, I saw something moving up ahead. It was big gator with a large part of his head, back and tail sticking out above the surface. Looked like some kind of territorial display. Since he stretched most of the way across the canal, I figured it was his and he could have it. No time for pictures. :shock:

Joey

 

[ezwater]

Obama knows he can't stop the pipeline. I know he can't stop the pipeline. The issue isn't the "midwest" but whether the pipeline should go through the Nebraska sandhills and the Ogalalla Aquifer. There would be no "local benefit" there, only greater or lesser damage.

Louisiana has benefitted from their pipelines, but I'm told the pipeline cuts have been a big factor in coastal erosion. If those pipelines had to be, they should have been done better. Now there are lots of no longer active pipelines, with their canals still causing loss of wetlands.

 

[Kayak Jack]

Hi, EZWater. I share your concern about Nature, and have a question. After camping a bit (no where near as much as Joey, Piper San, Seedtick, and Keith, and others) and observing canals, water, muck, etc. I saw nothing that would support your concern of, "Now there are lots of no longer active pipelines, with their canals still causing loss of wetlands."

The tide was going up and down in the ones I saw. So, I'm thinking that you're thinking of pipes and canals elsewhere. There's a large pipeline running from Michigan to Ohio about 150 yards from where I'm sitting, but it runs underground over hill and dale. Most folks around here don't even know it's there, or that it has been for about 60 years.

 

[Wannabe]

I'm kinda wondering how having a canal is a loss of wetlands. Canals have fish. Fish are good. Ergo. Canals are good.
Eat more fish.
Bob

 

[jdupre']

Ez, the coast is eroding, but not because of the pipelines and canals. They do have some effect, but are not the cause. Sea levels have been rising. The biggest cause of higher water in our area, is the compaction of the delta. Also, the channeling of the Miss. river stopped the yearly flooding and deposit of millions of tons of sediment. When you're 10 or 20 or 200 feet above sea level, you don't really notice. When you grow up at sea level like I did, you see major evidence of it.

Most of the yards in my neighborhood ended at the edge of the swamp. If the water came up just 4 or 5 inches you basically had no more yard. Since I was a kid, the average water level in our area has risen at least 12-15"......maybe more. The land that my grandfather's house used to occupy has no less than 12" of water on it all year. I used to keep the grass up and work in his vegetable and flower garden until I was in high school (late 60"s). It's really strange to go back and visit and see places you walked in sneakers that now require knee or even hip boots.

Waterfront property: People think that any shoreline (ocean, lake, river, etc.) is a static line on a map. Unless you have a helluva good bulkhead, the shoreline is ALWAYS changing. It might be 50' from your house today..........might be 49.6' next year.

Joey

 

[ezwater]

Just reviewed some studies, and the estimate of the effect of many pipeline cuts and accompanying canals is that they have contributed about 15% of the overall problem. There are newer ways of putting in pipelines that don't have nearly as much effect on the wetlands. But tidal action and freshwater flow through existing pipeline canals continue to cause widening and land loss.

One of the biggest factors is the loss of new river silt due to levees and dams on the Mississippi and Athafalaya (always afraid of misspelling that). The Corps and others are messing around with ways of restoring quasi-normal siltation.

As we all know, the contribution of sea rise has been controversial.

My daughter, son-in-law, and grandson live in a double shotgun right about at sea level, behind the Mississippi and Industrial Canal levees. We all pay attention to issues concerning the wetlands.

On pipelines over land, at least some that I see from Georgia rivers aren't buried or hidden, but the land over them is kept clear for maintenance and repair efforts. Having seen the Sandhills when I went to run the Niobrara, I think they may be more sensitive to pipeling disruption than other prairie and farmland areas. Some Nebraskans think so too. But I haven't seen any ecological, scientific, or political indications that the pipeline from Canada won't be built, or will even be delayed for long. Obama didn't stop the project, he only ruled that the normal planning and review should continue, rather than short-circuiting the process. Doesn't seem too radical regarding a big pipeline.

 

[islandpiper]

I have flown over the many pipelines in this area, marsh, swamp and woods, and along highways with the guy who does aerial inspections. I've walked and skied on the pipelines in Michigan......

In La, the many little cuts in the marshes give the gators and fish a place to travel and eat. in Michigan the pipeline cuts in the heavy woods give the many deer and moose and wolves and hunters a place to travel and see each other. The deer love them, the warm pipelines have green grass all winter and something to eat.

The near-shore pipelines that i have seen personally here in La do not run into the Gulf, they run back in the wet, usually many miles from the shore. The only ones NEAR SHORE are major, probably deeper and not that visible as they only serve the distribution points. Way back in the wet areas and all the way up to Baton Rouge, for instance, the lines may or may not be visible, except to the pilot who has the GPS and a map to draw on.

But, you never know, maybe some newspaper reporter a thousand miles away who has never been more than ten miles from a Starbucks has it right and those of us who actually live here have it wrong.

piper

 

[jdupre']

Mostly, in my area, compaction is the biggest factor with water inundation. Lake Verret, where I paddle a lot, has 30-40 miles of shoreline. Just about every foot of that has cypress trees growing in open water 100 or yards from what used to be the shore. These trees are in 4 feet of water. Now, every one of those trees sprouted, grew to at least a few feet high, on dry or semi-dry land. Had to. Cypress trees don't sprout out of the water.
So over the last several hundred years, the ground under the lake has sunk at least 4 feet. Man has only had an effect on that for the last 100 years or less. So NATURE, under it's own power, caused the lake to sink.
Another thing about erosion. Yes, the Louisiana coast is eroding in the last 100 years. But, it could have( and probably did) erode way before any man was there to measure it. Coastlines are ALWAYS either growing or eroding........some much faster than others.

Joey

 

[Kayak Jack]

Mother Nature doesn't stand still. She changes everything. One day,we (people) will be but a memory, and all will have left.
(I hope they drop a line once in a while.) :wink:

 

[rpecot]

I've flown offshore many times and can tell you the pipeline and canal cuts have definitely had an impact. Although, as stated above, it's not the only contributor to coastal erosion. But it certainly hasn't helped. Of course, when the majority of these cuts were made, nobody understood the impact they would have on the coastal environment. Pictures, videos, and Google Earth don't do it any justice. When you fly over the coast it is striking how little coast land there is in South Louisiana.

 

[rpecot]

Oh yeah, nice trip report Joey.