Throwing Stones at MRGO–Part 2

 
The Corps of Engineers will finish the rock wall across MRGO by the beginning of this year’s hurricane season. At seven feet it is not tall enough to stop storm surges, but it will stop salt water intrusion into the marshes east of the Bayou la Loutre ridge and the MRGO spoil bank.
 
Not everyone is [...]

The Flood of 2009

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune explains the geology of the Flood of 2009. 
The Red River of the North flows along the bed of an ancient glacial lake, Lake Agassiz that covered northern Minnesota and stretched up into Manitoba. The bed is flat and the river meanders across it in many tight loops.
 
 
As the Wisconsinan ice sheet withdrew [...]

MRGO is Going

 
 The closure of MRGO is 15% complete and the citizens of St. Bernard Parish will hasten the process along a bit. They will hold a ceremony and throw stones at the site of the closure.

More on More Space for the Louisiana Black Bear

 
Yesterday, the Shreveport Times had a follow-up article on the plans of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate 1,195,821 acres for critical habitat for the Louisiana black bear. 
 
The article included a link to the USFWS insert in the March 10 Federal Register, which tells you every thing you need to know about the project.
The designation is [...]

Rainbow and Robin Williams

 
Last night as I finished putting up yesterday’s post, the rain that fell all afternoon stopped, the sun came out, and a full double rainbow appeared  outside my window.
 
The weeping willow at the edge of the pond is greening up. Four summers ago, I made a series of images of the willow in all different [...]

Scaups and Pool 19

 

Pool 19: Old Niota
Hancock County, Illinois
“Later that day I stopped near Fort Madison at a place over looking the best, open sweeps of Pool 19. It was a spring waterfowl mecca. Most were lesser scaup in great rafts spread on the open pool like tattered fabric, here tightly knit, there open and torn. With them, [...]

Island Building in Pool 8, Upper Mississippi River

 

Goose Island: Wigwam Slough
La Crosse County, Wisconsin
Contradictory processes happen along the margins of Goose Island, a classic V-shaped island off the Wisconsin bank, south of LaCrosse. Running Slough, which flows out of a large complex of backwater sloughs and ponds, runs between Goose Island and the delta of Mormon Creek. Together, they form a [...]

Lock and Dam 26, Alton, Illinois

 
Yesterday at Riverlands, Congress’s gift to anglers and birders at Lock and Dam 26, the dam was wide open, the river bank-full, and the anglers  out in force. 
One guy had a huge catfish on a spear; a second had a string of big-mouth carp  hitched to a large piece of driftwood. Disturb a big-mouth with the [...]

Kaskaskia River

You can find directions to the hike to the Kaskaskia River Lock and Dam  at twotanktours.com/StLouisTours.html. Download the Bluff Road tour. The cost is $7. It covers the American Bottom, the great Mississippi River Floodplain in Monroe and Randolph Counties in Illinois. It also includes  hikes of the Fults Hilltop Prairie, a rare ecosystem on top [...]

Confluence and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act

 
The Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, chaired by Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar, approved a $999,570 grant under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) for wetland restoration in the Confluence Region of Missouri.
The Great Rivers Habitat Alliance calls this peninsula the Confluence Floodway and this region between the Missouri and [...]