Black Lake
 

My neighbor fished the Salt Ditch today and said they saw a crane working in Black Lake. They are starting the levee that will seal off about a third of the lake and fill it with ship channel dredge spoil. There was an article about it in the LC paper last year. They also didn't catch anything.

That sucks

what???????/

Is this on the west side of the lake?

Ya on the west side of the lake. Making the water very muddy in the lake.

I will send someone a marked up Google image if they can post it. It shows the area that will be filled. This will block off all of the western marsh cuts and all of the nursery flats where the shrimp come out. This property is owned by Curt Marcantel and is listed at 300 acres but the area shown is much larger than that. The cost is estimated at $10 million.

They....the Government....Us / We.....are spending $ 33,333 per acre to build up privately owned marsh????

Or....if the area is really larger, maybe it is a better deal...... ~ $20 - 25,000 per acre of marsh land.

They are not filling it in for the land owners. They have no place to put the spoil.
They are offering to build up private marshes to help with erosion and have a place
to put the spoil.
They are trying to put the marsh back to what it looked like before all the erosion.
They are not forcing anyone to take the spoil.
I saw the presentation from the mud pimp for the port a couple years ago.

They are going to do some in the Sabine Refuge also. It is for the best, in my opinion.

i seen where they put up to dredge the ship channel on fedbizopps just a few days ago ........didn't think it would start this fast though

Whenever you hear coastal restoration think that the sportsman is going to loose access to some fishing or hunting areas. I saw it in Sabine refuge when they dumped all the dredging spoil in Hog Island gully and we are going to see it again in Black Lake. Yes we have had erosion, Moss Lake used to be a great spot for white perch. I don't think that we should try to go back to how is was in the 40's. The weirs are great places to fish in the winter but I think that we would be better off without damming up all the marsh drains into our lakes. Just my opinion.

there are stipulations when the state builds up private marsh though.

its very technical, but many times if the state funds an erosion project that land becomes state property

It is federal money doing this. The Corps pay the LC Port to dredge. The port has no
place to dump spoil, so large land owners were asked to use their land to deposit
spoil. I think it is a win/win situation.
I hunted alligators on some of the old Amoco land and there is some big open water
back there that was once some nice marsh just 20 years ago.

yea, its def a win win,

sometimes you have to sacrifice things for saving our coast

I work for Mike Hooks Inc. also part owner of this dredgeing company. We are located in Westlake La. and are family owned and operated. The Sabine Refuge job mentioned in the above post was done by us. These contracts that the Army Corp of engineers are releasing now are for Marsh Restoration and Creation jobs. The Marsh Creation Contract for Black Lake is a large job and will fill most of the western part of black lake with spoil. This certain job has been in the Army Corps books for many years due to a promise made with the Marcantel family. Which I have come up with the conclusion of this certain job being "Politics." Although the jobs that we perform will rebuild the marshes and create shelter and new life for Birds, Salt water Fish, reptiles and etc. In by no way will this effect our fisheries besides cutting off some great fishing holes but there are plenty of those in S.W. La.

The Marsh creation in black lake is going to total out at $50,000,000. We missed the bid by a small amount. Weaks Marine will be doing this contract.

There is not much sacrificed out there. They are just rebuilding what was eroded.
It will only help in the long run. If I had the land out there, I wouldn't mind them
rebuilding my land, for free.

Salt Ditch
 

Not familiar with the Black Lake area other than its location on a map and was interested in the effects of the spoil dumping to rebuild the marsh. What part of the lake is proposed for the dumping? What are the depths of this lake? Don't hear of any reports from Black Lake or areas related to it. Is the Salt Ditch you referenced also known as "Alkali Ditch" and how deep is the ditch itself? How will the deposit of the spoil affect the main arteries accessing Black Lake...will this silt these canals restricting access to Black Lake itself or will the Corps also dredge some of the main channels leading to the lake? Just curious if anyone has any feedback on what this could mean for fishing, hunting or rebuilding the areas near there as well as any effects on the fishing in Big Lake itself and the surrounding area such as the ship channel from this project.

They are not going to block it off.
The salt ditch is used for oilfield boats and tugs/barges to get into the lake.
There are wells in the lake that need attention. Oil won't be cut off in Black Lake.

So is "Salt Ditch" what is refferenced as "Alkali Ditch" running from IC to Black Lake?

Yes. Also the spoil will be pumped from the ship channel to what is called a "Disposal Area" in black lake. The disposal area has a dike as its perimeter that will hold all the spoil in the area. There will be no run off until it is eroded away but then there will be Maintenance in the disposal area to maintain stable dikes to hold the material in. In fact almost all the islands that divide the ship channel and Lake Cal. are disposal areas

Thanks. Just tried looking at Black Lake on Google Earth to get an idea of the scope of this and there is a big cloud bank covering about half of the lake. The area you indicated as the targeted area appears to have oilfield canals there as well. Will these canals remain opened? Are any of the other spoil areas you referenced as islands maintained as the proposed project will be?

THey will not close off any oilfield canals. Oil is too important in this country.
The islands on each side of the ship channel are spoil dumping sites.
The port admitted that in the past, they just dumped spoil there, they
didn't fix it to where the spoil wouldn't erode back into the ship channel.
They know they screwed up in the past and are trying to get federal money to help
them make it better.
The ship channel caused a lot of erosion, now they need to use the ship channel to
fix it.
I think the only natural islands are St. Johns, Rabbit and some almost gone ones in Turners.

Probably safe to say that C. Marcantel is coming out on the positive side of this deal both money and land. Doubt he would participate otherwise.

There is nothing wrong with that. The offer was made to him, he took it.
He would be dumb to not take it.
But there were several land owners who opted to not do it.

well I wonder if they could make a lot to park my camper and just give it to me

Ray.....was this the meeting in Hackberry about 4 years ago.....if so, I was there also.

No, it was at a meeting in Lake Charles about 2 years ago.
He was discussing water security at a boating event.
He gave a good presentation on the dredging along the ship channel.

The meeting I went to was about the C. of Eng. plans on what to do in the future with the "spoils" after dredging the ship channel.

One of the proposals was to pump the dredges into the area that is NE of Turner's bay. Another area is the area north of long point to make the island 200 to 400 yards wider.

The cost to pump the spoils very far.....just gets too expensive.

They did say it cost a buttload to pump far, but the feds were going to help with the cost. They have to place pumps every so far to boost the mud farther down the line.

If Sabine Pools offered to build you a $50,000 pool in your backyard would you turn it down?:rolleyes: Curt did not create the problem, this is a win win for everyone living in SW La.

I agree. They asked him. He is going to have a lot betta marsh when they
finish.

And a house;)
Terraces were looking good in November also.

Raymond and Ray...Fellas' am I reading you two's reply, to my above post, as being negative in nature? My post was simply a statement, by no means giving way to any snide regards towards Marcantel and his business dealings regarding black lake. ;)

soo basically..they are just delaying the erosion..you can't "stop" erosion its natural. soo pretty much, they will build the land up..it erodes a couple years later, fthen they just fill it back up...if thats what this means?

It will take more than a year. They should plant the right kinds of grass and it will hold up.
It was more of a fresh water marsh and the saltwater killed the grass, so it eroded.
If you plant saltwater resistant grasses, it will hold up well, it's done every day.

Drive over the 210 bridge and look east towards the PPG cut. All of the grass on the west side of the cut was planted less than 3 yrs ago and really taking off with growth. PPG paid for this in their settlement with the state in a long standing enviromental suit. One of our CCA board members was instrumental in getting this moving. Everyone can B#*&% about what CCA does not do but nobody acknowledges anything good. Help pull the wagon and stop trying to take the wheels off while it is moving forward.;)

That area looks a lot better. Now if they would do the other side of the bridge.