Quote:
Originally Posted by "W"
my point is saltwater has been in Lake Charles way before you and I were even born!! its part of life when you live on the gulf coast!
If God did not want saltwater to intrude lakes and bays he would of make the gulf freshwater
you can not have a marsh that is less than 5 miles from the gulf of Mexico and expect it to stay fresh..
CMON man
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You are correct, saltwater would have come in naturally at times, but it was likely not the norm and that is exactly why the marshes are classified as brackish because the plants there evolved to take salinity spikes and dips and evolved to have floods come over them and hurricanes every so often and were adapted to frequent fire, but when you keep highly saline water on top of them for long periods of time, they can't tolerate that. There are different classifications of marsh. You can't magically make brackish marsh a salt marsh. Emergent plants can not move on their own, it can not control its environment where it is. Wherever it sprouts, it has to deal with whatever comes its way, and saltwater is not something that it would have had to deal with as much as it does now had the Ship Channel not been dug and give a direct route for saltwater.