bonnet carre spillway
On Tuesday May 3rd, members of the Gulf Coast chapter of Public Laboratory/Grassroots Mapping are planning to do a pre-spill map of the Bonnet Carre Spillway, pictured above. Shannon Dosemagen writes:
Wanted to let everyone know that we are planning to go and map the Bonne Carre Spillway (Louisiana) next Tuesday (Thursday as a rain date) in anticipation of potential flooding that the LA state gov't is just starting to mention to people- close to 60 foot crests on the Mississippi River (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/28/mississippi-river-flood-2011_n_855242.html)- last time we had crests this high (1927) they gave us a "better" levee system and flooded out both St. Bernard and Plaquemines parish since they were not valued like Orleans. Plan this time is to open the Bonne Carre spillway which since that time has become home to major industrial facilities in the Norco area such as Shell Chemical which, as we know, don't pay attention much to emergency preparedness- Murphy Oil dumped a million gallons of oil into St. B and the Lower9 during Katrina because they failed to fill one of their tanks in preparation of the flooding to weigh it down. We are interested in seeing why type of industrial preparations (if any) are being made.
We will also have a good chance to try out the new tracker that was just acquired and we are going to also take some ground maps to mark up- for instance there are unmarked slave burial ground in the spillway that are important historical and cultural landmarks to note in the map.
If you would like to join or have thoughts/suggestions, please let us know! Shannon