The latest threat to the nation’s last great overflow swamp subsided, at least for now, but reports last week leave its overall health in question.
It’s a salty situation in more ways than one, for sure.
As saltwater creeps slowly up the very low Mississippi River toward New Orleans, prompting drinking water advisories along the way since June, officials reaching for solutions came up with an idea to completely stop the 70-30 diversion flow (per law) into the Atchafalaya River at Simmesport. Such drastic action would drop the river that feeds the Atchafalaya Basin to levels never seen before and leave it vulnerable to saltwater coming up from the western Gulf of Mexico.