Though southern Louisiana rarely endures the nastiness winter dishes out to most of the nation, it still gets cold enough across coastal marshes to give even the hardiest speckled trout lockjaw. Die-hard speck anglers generally hang up their popping corks and topwaters
and spend January and February oiling reels and changing line—except those who fish in Delacroix, where they have year-round access to abundance. There are simply a lot of fish in the marshes surrounding the small fishing outpost about a half hour east of New Orleans, which Bob Dylan immortalized in his song “Tangled Up in Blue.” Those who like to catch bass can do plenty of it along the seemingly endless grass-lined banks mere minutes from the boat launch. Those same grass beds hold some of the angriest, most well-fed redfish in the Gulf, making Delacroix a go-to spot for redfish tournament anglers from as far away as Biloxi and Mobile. Duck and deer hunters like it, too.
From Delacroix Island, it’s easy to see how Louisiana earned the nickname “Sportsman’s Paradise.”
However, some long-time Delacroix anglers, shrimpers, and crabbers insist that Delacroix exemplifies “trouble in paradise.” And, the blame for that trouble is laid at the bank of the Mississippi River, the very source that built the area’s marshes and ridges before bayous named Terre-aux-Bouefs, La Loutre, and Lery were blocked by dams and levees in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In 1991, the Caernarvon Diversion, a controlled concrete gate in the river’s levee, was opened to bring a little river water back to the marshes, lakes, and bays near Delacroix that had grown increasingly salty in the mid-20th century. The high salinity levels had caused some oyster harvesters to predict that, without the diversion bringing the needed brackish balance to oyster beds, the area’s industry would perish by century’s end.
So, the diversion was designed to move as much as 9,000 cubic feet of river water per second, with as little sediment as possible, to lower salinity levels in the bays adjacent to Breton Sound. The immediate impacts included an infusion of nutrients to marsh grasses, an explosion in the largemouth bass population, a dramatic increase in redfish populations and growth rates, and more oysters—but not before many oysters died. The freshwater flow aimed at increasing oyster production throughout the entire basin was too much for beds closest to the diversion. However, by 2002, basin-wide oyster production had increased by as much as 3.7 times what it had been prior to diversion operation, according to a report by the state’s Department of Natural Resources.
Despite being built primarily to benefit oysters, several oyster harvesters, some from reefs outside the diversion’s reefs, sued the state in 1994 for damages from the diversion’s operation. After initially being awarded an enormous sum of $2 billion from a local, sympathetic judge, the Louisiana Supreme Court tossed out that award, finding that the state did not owe oyster harvesters a guarantee of water salinities. An in-depth report on that suit and the circumstances that led to it was produced by the New Orleans Times Picayune in 2004.
The head-butting between oyster harvesters and the state notwithstanding, general complaints about the diversion from recreational fishermen were minimal. Certainly there was some dirty water to contend with, when the diversion was flowing and more salt-reliant species, like speckled trout and brown shrimp, relocated at peak flows. But the trout returned in the fall to feast on white shrimp populations, which increased after the diversion’s construction. Crabs were still plentiful. Redfish were growing fatter faster, and sampling showed there were more of them. And the area became especially popular for bass fishermen and increasingly attractive for duck hunters.
Then, Hurricane Katrina’s more than 20-foot storm surge tried to wipe Delacroix off the map in 2005. Camps, homes, and businesses flooded or just washed away. The marsh was rolled up like carpet and piled into canals and on top of roads and levees. When the water receded, bayou banks, shorelines, and even entire lakes were gone. Delacroix’s long healthy and resilient marsh resembled areas west of the Mississippi River that had been ravaged by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and subject to higher subsidence rates. Seven years later, Hurricane Isaac lashed Delacroix, furthering Katrina’s damage and coating the community in sticky marsh mud.
Big Mar, 2004, Google Earth.
Many residents and fishermen insisted the hurricanes’ storm surges weren’t the lone culprit. Some blamed the diversion for dumping too many nutrients and artificial fertilizers from the Mississippi River into the marshes, weakening grass roots and allowing freshwater plants to push out the heartier cord grass found in salty marshes. A few in the science community backed that notion. Many disputed it however, claiming that, while freshwater plants are more susceptible to storm surge, they recover quickly and Katrina’s exceptional wave action truly caused the damage. And, though the diversion was built to minimize sediment delivery, diversion proponents referenced satellite images from the last decade showing a small delta forming at the outfall channel’s mouth, filling in the farm-land-turned-shallow-lake called Big Mar. If a small diversion like Caernarvon could build land, arguably larger diversions could build more.
Some of the same people who faulted the diversion for the marsh damage were then blaming it for fisheries damages as well. According to the most vocal critics, freshwater was killing speckled trout, not just moving them around. Delacroix just wasn’t as good a place to fish as it used to be before the diversion, they said, despite the healthy redfish populations, year-round speckled trout harvests, and the widespread largemouth bass catches. There were even claims made that blue catfish in the area were eating away at the speckled trout population, the same speckled trout that swim with more formidable predators like dolphins, sharks, and alligator gar.
Big Mar, 2013, Google Earth.
All of these pros and cons, and all the commentary from supporters and detractors, are now being considered by government officials, conservation groups, fishermen, scientists, and engineers as the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority tries to determine the impacts of the diversions it has prescribed to help rebuild and sustain the coastal marshes vanishing faster than any other landmass in the world. Some of those diversions, like one proposed in the Delacroix area, will be five to ten times as large as Caernarvon and operated to maximize sediment delivery, not just control salinity. Using Caernarvon and other existing controlled and non-controlled diversions as a model, designers, engineers, and scientists are trying to figure out what residents can expect when large-scale diversions become operational. Critics say the projects won’t build enough land to offset impacts to fisheries and that the state should put its resources into building land by moving sediment with dredges. Proponents say dredging alone will not sustain Louisiana’s coast and that the Mississippi River must be returned to its delta.
Mindful of the opposition, state coastal restoration planners say they are working as aggressively as possible to build large-scale diversions which, by the government definition of “aggressively,” means sometime in the next decade. Answers to questions about fisheries impacts, and whether communities like Delacroix can even withstand the increases in water levels, are coming, say state officials.
Diversions will almost certainly be part of any long-term plan to restore and sustain the Mississippi River Delta. The TRCP, working with state and federal agencies, biologists, conservationists, and anglers, identified Mississippi River diversions as necessary for sustainable fisheries across the Gulf in its 2013 report, “Gulf of Mexico Recreational Fisheries: Recommendations for Restoration, Recovery and Sustainability.” The report advocated for their construction, provided the impacts to marine fisheries are identified and the fisheries community remains engaged in the process. As the state moves closer to construction of these unprecedented projects, that engagement has never been more important.