Still no Hummingbirds although a little yellow canary perched on the feeder briefly yesterday. I don’t have many flowers in the yard so I wonder what the little guys are feeding upon?
I still see a few boats coming into the Belle River landing with flattened crawfish traps but only a few. And the sport fishing doesn’t appear to be all that great either. The spillway water is high. At least one small alligator is hanging out at the landing at one launch ramp or the other, attracted, I’m sure, by fish scraps.
Belle River is quiet. The Spunky Monkey is busy on weekends. I can hear the music from my house and fortunately, I’m far enough away so the sound is muted.
Got a call from the St. Martin Sheriff’s office that he, the Sheriff, will be holding a lunch for seniors on July 8 from 10:30 to 1:30 in the Stephensville Elementary School gym. Flyers will be sent to me soon for distribution. It’s always a nice lunch with the ever popular Bingo played and lots of prizes.
Don’t know if any guests will be there. July is a busy month and I’ll have to miss one event in order to attend this one.
I recently got a press release from the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper organization sharing an assessment about the basin provided by Dr. Ivor van Heerden. It is not a pretty report. According to Dr. Ivor, as a result of Army Corps bad decisions, oil and gas activitiy, and other, the whole purpose of the Atchafalaya Basin has been compromised and if we have another big flood this whole area, south central Louisiana, will be under water like it was in l927. The whole purpose of the Basin was/is to provide a way for excess Mississippi River water to get to the Gulf of Mexico and again according to his assessment, it now has less than half that capacitiy to do so.
Avery Theriot, President of the Louisiana Crawfish Association West also commented on the Corps; mismanagement mentioning the disasters that have already occurred.
I know the Morganza structure almost failed in l973 and the assessment says unless changes are made now, that will definitely happen if we have another big flood event. There is a book, “Control of Nature’ by McAfee telling how close the structure came to failure in l973. I personally remember standing atop the levee across from my house with the spillway water just a few feet below. It was scary.
Dr. Ivor’s management plan can be viewed at www.basinkeeper. org/ management plan. I haven’t looked at that site yet but will.
I also remember when the pavilion was built at the Belle River landing and a big fuss was made about how wonderful it was. And it has been. At that time I don’t think anybody in authority realized that the spillway water would cover the pavilion floor many different times. It was probably that year, l973, when my husband and I were crawfishing and had to launch (like everybody else) our boat at the top of the levee. I would have to back up from the road to the top and launch. It was tricky. And especially tricky with a standard shift truck.
That might have been the year when I had to tie my pirogue to the back porch of my house and paddle to the road to get into my car and drive to work. My house has always (knock on wood here) been above high water, but not my yard.
And perhaps all this ‘assessment’ info has been stirred to life and why I received a letter from the Army Corps rreminding me my property is within some particular flood area and if a flood occurred, I would just be out of luck. Always a good thing to know. (A little sarcasm here)!
Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be emailed at [email protected].
