re: Ascension Parish pumps floodwaters from Spanish Lake into Bayou Manchac..

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Bayou Manchac used to flow into the Mississippi River before humans altered the course of Mother Nature.
you sure about that.... Given the higher elevations near the MS river as opposed to the lowering elevations along the route of bayou manchac - it would appear the river flowed into bayou manchac most of the time,

except for tidal back flow when river stages were low.

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Glad someone else caught this too.

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Given the higher elevations near the MS river as opposed to the lowering elevations along the route of bayou manchac - it would appear the river flowed into bayou manchac most of the time,

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Correct. Manchac is a distributary of the Mississippi and flowed from MS River to Amite. It would flow backwards into the MS River if the Amite was flooding and the MS River was low.

Currently it wouldn't. Right now all that's being done is moving water. I live in Gonzales and am very thankful for the Marvin Braud pumping station Ascension has. However, it sometimes has bad impacts on other areas.

Water has been flowing from the Amite over the roads in Maurepas in recent days. Blind River is backed up and parts of Airline in St James Parish is under water. Much of the right eastbound lane as of last night.

Also, the problem is that almost ALL of EBR rainfall flows into the Amite River, and then the Amite River backs up into and all the way up Bayou Manchac to the Bluebonnet Swamp (on the EBR side) and the Alligator Bayou/Spanish Lake basin (on the Ascension/Iberville side). That means all the continued development all across EBR (not just down around Burbank) has increased the runoff into Ascension and Iberville. Then Ascension and Iberville get stuck with the increased EBR runoff, because ..... Manchac cannot drain until the Amite drains and the winds from the south have been slowing the Amite drainage. So Ascension and Iberville are stuck with EBR runoff until the Amite can drain.

And also notice that all the development along Burbank/Bluebonnet is just developing deeper into the swamp, putting more drainage pressure on Ascension/Iberville.

Apparently, the Amite River Basin Commission has jurisdiction but no authority.

So, it's a mess that will require some interparish cooperation, but please don't involve the Corps of Engineers

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please don't involve the Corps of Engineers

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I agree fully, but unfortunately I dont see any other way.

There are several thousand acres back there.....and the drop right now is imperceptible by just eyeballing it. But they were bringing in more pipe this morning.