re: Planned freshwater diversions will doom LA salt fishing

quote:

---

do you work in the oyster industry?

---

No just a recreational fisherman. I frequent the Biloxi marsh/ Breton Sound area, but other areas too. Mainly seek trout. Last month I bassed fished Caernavon. The lush freshwater vegetation that supported that bass fishery is gone, relocated far inland from Hurricane last year.

That was a good question though.

:l

quote:

---

No just a recreational fisherman. I frequent the Biloxi marsh/ Breton Sound area, but other areas too. Mainly seek trout.

---

Mr. Deege,
Where do a majority of the large trout (+ 6.5 or 7 pounds) come from each year in this state?

Which state has better trout fishing, Louisiana or Florida? What is your best guess as to why?

Is this the question you are talking about?

quote:

---

Call me crazy, but would it work any better to stir up a bunch of sediment via turbulence and then allowing it to go through a diversion? That way the top, skimmed stuff would have much more suspended sediment that just straight skimming off of the top?

---

There is a little more to it than just grabbing whatever sediment is available from the river bottom. The stuff you want to capture is the bedload. The bedload of the river is constantly changing and moving. As the flow of the river changes, large pockets of heavy sediment are moved around like dunes. During high river flows like the one we had a few years ago, the sediment carrying capacity of the river is sufficient to really move the bedload around and disperse it during flood stages.

Some areas of the river naturally accumulate large quantities of this good sediment, like bends. These areas can be used to strategically place diversions, or also be used as borrow areas for dredging that recharge naturally.

you will only capture bedload when the turbulence is high. Some folks were saying that cfs does not have a correlation with sediment load, but in fact it is directly correlative.

quote:

---

Woody

---

you are spot-on when you are talking about some places that accumulate sediment, but when you instal a siphon, you want it to be in an area with high velocities, (a cutbank) so it will carry the sediments.

Those areas were what I was mainly talking about. Putting the pumps upriver from a diversion raises the sediment to levels where the diversions wouldn't have to be so deep. Too deep and they would just get choked up with sediment over time because the CFM of moving water would gradually slow. I am assuming the difference between freshwater diversions and sediment diversions is the depth mainly. Can't capture what is below you.

It doesn't matter if the sediment is at the bottom shifting, moving, or settled. You can still devise a way to get it suspended, "floating", thus allowing it to go through diversions. Pumping air or water gets the sediment up

Areas where the diversions will be placed are permanent because they will always gather sediment there over time. The pumps could be semi-mobile, allowing them to move to the most desirable areas


Hope that sounds coherent. Hard to write everything I want to on my phone.

quote:

---

My guess is that we have a unique saltwater marsh/estuary system that trout need for eggs/young to survive. They need a certain salinity or no hatch. The diversions destroy that balance.

Its won't be a matter of having to motor a bit further to find trout. There will be significantly less trout.

---

Didn't exactly answer my questions, but ok. I'm not sure how you can say that diversions destroy the balance needed for eggs/young to survive. The Caernarvon Diversion was opened in 1991, 22 years ago. There have been many life cycles of speckled trout during those 22 years. Year in/year out dozens of charter fisherman/shrimpers/oystermen make their living from the Reggio/Delacroix/Hopedale areas. Doesn't sound like the Caernarvon DIVERSION has destroyed any balance in the past 1/4 century.

quote:

---

Da fuk kind of bullshite is that? So they assign you something you have zero interest in, don't care about, and probably won't even think about in your off time. Stupid stupid stupid.

Show them that picture and tell them that's what you are doing. If your teacher says no, go above him.

If you need any help building or getting materials(trash/air/water pumps, plexy, pvc), or need help in the design or processes, I will help, and I am sure most on the OB will to because it is something that needs to be addressed. I like building shite too

---

They give you an entire list of options of sponsored projects. You have to have funding to design and ultimately build these things. If you can propose a reasonable project with a basis for sponsorship, they'll probably add it to the list with you as one of the guaranteed team members. Otherwise, you rank the projects according to what you want to work on. The department then tries to make everyone happy.

Don't forget you have to not impede any shipping traffic with deep draft vessels so you are limited to what you can do.

Also a majority of the dredging the corps does in the river is all re-suspending sediment. They use a pan dredge to suck it up off the river bottom and pump it a mile or half mile through a pipe trailing behind the ship to be carried down stream.

Ideal solution would be a bottom sitting unmanned dredge that pumps to diversions in these locations. Think of something like the bottom dredges they use for diamond mining off the coast of Africa in 200-300 ft of water.

Corps actually did a big study on creating a sediment trap at head of passes (I'm fairly certain but don't hang me if I'm off on exact location). A sediment trap is basically a giant hole which slows down the current enough to allow the sediment load to fall out, then you can pump it from a single location. The thing that really killed it when still in feasability stage was they couldn't buy the equipment bc it wasn't made in the USA.

Also, ever ask the corps how much they actually dredge? They may be trying to keep a good count these days, but years ago several months of asking that very question finally got to the answer of "we dunno we don't care." (Put in layman a terms)

Reason why: The dredges are paid a day rate to stay on site to maintain a navigation depth. If they move 1 cy or 1,000,000 cy they get paid the same. If the corps were to release them from the day rate and make it a quantity contract they would go somewhere else as soon as the job was done. Then 3 months later when the river had to be dredged again they would not have a dredge bc they went to Africa/Asia and its more profitable to stay there.

So in order to ensure navigability of the river (their mandate) the dredgers stay on a day rate to stay on location.

quote:

---

The thing that really killed it when still in feasability stage was they couldn't buy the equipment bc it wasn't made in the USA.

---

This is an excuse more than a reason. It's called a non-availability waiver and they are typically granted.