Baja St. Martin

A neighbor and I drove to Bayou Sorrel last Sunday to spend a few hours with Atchafalaya Basinkeeper Dean Wilson, his wife, Cara, and several other ABK members – Greg Guirard, Anna Thibodeaux, a woman who teaches at ULL, and her husband and another woman whose name escapes me. An interesting group of people.
We helped prepare membership letters to ABK members and prospective members and also shared our information about the FAS/levee situation. Anna Thibodeaux, a media person recently hired by the ABK, had a copy of the FAS application submitted to the LDNR. It was a total of 400 pages, necessarily bound in four separate soft cover “books.”
Anna is doing pretty much the same thing as Wilma Subra, going through the permit application to see what it says. I didn’t have much time to look over the document but did see a graphic of the proposed transfer site that FAS wants. Somehow the impression has been given (maybe this is just my feeling) that all FAS wants is a driveway for the trucks to go over the levee, offload their material into a pipeline and that’s it. Maybe a few lights, some shells for parking.
Oh, my goodness. Not even close! The sketch looked like a diagram of an entire plant facility – maybe sort of the size of Dow in Plaquemine. Now, I know I’m exaggerating a bit here, but the reality of what FAS wants is a long, long, long way from what they’re telling the public.
Anyway, someone said they’d heard the DNR public hearing will be in September but we do not know if that’s a fact. We’ll just have to wait and find out.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I pulled a first! For the millionth time I mowed my grass with my riding lawnmower but this time when I passed the back of my house, a stone or shell flew from under the mower bed and zinged right through one side of the sliding patio door in my back room. The glass pieces showered down with a sound like one of those rain sticks! It was pretty spectacular!
I called a glass man and he said he’d have to order a replacement. So from Monday to Thursday, the open frame has been covered with plastic. Today the guy came and put in the new glass. The cat and dog are both crouched by the glass looking out for the first time in days, and I don’t have to walk the entire way around the house just to get out (or in). It’s wonderful.
Problem now is I’m going to be really gun shy mowing grass near the house. I’m thinking of hanging a sheet over the door on the outside while I mow. That would be a nuisance but cheaper than a new door!
A few people are still crawfishing. It’s got to be miserably hot in the woods, but $1.25 a pound is still an enticement for some. I haven’t eaten any in a few weeks but I suspect they’re pretty hard shelled by now.
I’m usually pretty fussy about my yard, pulling weeds, etc., but for some reason the past few days I was lazy and when I finally got to work, it was as though mutant vines had taken over. They were climbing the fence, going up the shop walls, all my husband’s metal stash, the pipes holding up the shop roof and even spreading to my neighbor’s porch, wrapping around their porch furniture and, with almost human intent, heading to their bass boats! I cleared everything out but it was sort of spooky the way these vines had engulfed everything in their path.

Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be e-mailed at lcooke9417@bellsouth.net.