Bayou St. John EarthCache

BAYOU ST. JOHN Geological Origin
180 million years ago a shifting earth’s crust created a split, and gradual subsided creating the Mississippi River basin. About 80 million years ago the Gulf of Mexico reached Illinois.About 50 million years ago, glaciers began to form, seas subsided, and about 10,000years B.C. the Gulf had receded below New Orleans.
Shortly after that the last ice age ended, glaciers began to melt and the seas began to rise again. About 4,000 B.C. the shoreline stabilized along the Gulf much as it is today except for Louisiana. Its shoreline is believed to have been at about the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain today.
The Mississippi River continued to build deltas in the area, creating an enbayment about2,000 years ago that we now know as Lake Pontchartrain. The lower Mississippi has changed its course several times and continues to try to do so. Until man built levees it overflowed its banks annually, and this water seeking the Gulf routed out bayou tributaries.
This process is believed to have created Bayous Métairie and Gentilly - a continuous stream from the Mississippi River at Kenner to Lake Pontchartrain. Bayou St.John is believed to be a tributary of that stream created about 400 - 600 years ago.

Earliest Recorded Exploration and Settlement

Spanish explorers discovered the mouth of the Mississippi in 1513 and Luis de Moscoso traveled down the Mississippi in 1543. De la Salle descended the Mississippi to its mouth in April 1682.Iberville and Bienville explored the lower Mississippi in February 1699. During this trip they were shown the river terminus of a portage that led to Bayou Chupic (St. John).
In May 1699, Bienville found the mouth of the bayou. He did not enter but explored the entire shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Iberville returned to France in May 1699 but left 80 men with Bienville at Biloxi. Between May and December 1699 Bienville explored the length of the bayou and named it Bayou St. Jean. He found a mound of high ground on the right as he entered, which later became the site of Fort St. Jean. Bienville found abandoned Indian huts at what is now the site of Kennedy High School. He found the mouth of a small bayou on the east bank at the location of today’s Park Island. He named it Bayou Bienville.
He found more abandoned huts, formerly occupied by Acolapissa Indians, at a sharp bend at the intersection with another bayou of equal width (Bayou Chapitoulas - Métairie), present location of intersection of City Park and Carrollton Avenues. Bienville followed an Indian trail along the west bank from this Indian village around another sharp bend inthe bayou to a log bridge that connected to the portage to the river, located at present BellStreet (Bayou Road).
A short distance north of the portage he found another bayou on the east bank near today’s Grand Route St. John. It was called Bayou Sauvage, later Bayou Gentilly. Iberville on his return from France in December, 1699 inspected Bayou St. Jean and its immediate vicinity.
The first fort was built at the mouth of the bayou in 1701. By 1722 it was recorded to have six guns. The importance of Bayou St. John to the early settlers was that it shortened the distance between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico by 75 miles. Sailing ships required as much as 30 days to travel up the Mississippi to New Orleans. Tacking was treacherous in the narrow channel, and often a ship had to wait for a change in wind direction.
The Biloxi garrison was short of food. The soil there was not suited for agriculture, and the ships from France were few. France was having problems at home at that time. Six colonists were persuaded to settle on the banks of Bayou St. John in 1708 on acreage granted by the Colonial Government at Mobile. These concessions had 2 1/2 to 3-arpent bayou frontage by 40 arpents deep. 1 arpent =191.835 feet.
These settlers were: Antoine Rivard de la Vigne, Nicholas Delon, Baptiste Portier, Louis Juchereau de St. Denis. Two not recorded
St. Denis blazed the Old Spanish Trail to San Antonio. Failing to develop trade with the Spanish in Mexico, he founded Natchitoches in 1714.
Some other settlers on Bayou St. John: Antoine Le Page DuPratz -1718 - author of the first History of Louisiana published in1758. He wrote of plantation life along both shores of Bayou St. John and Bayou Gentilly. Francois Hery -1741 - was Councilor Assessor to the Superior Council in 1748, and was active in the 1768 revolution. Alexander Milne -1776 - was in the hardware and brick business, and purchased large tracts on both sides of the bayou. Probably the first millionaire in the area. Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent -1722 - owned property on west bank in present City Park and played a prominent role in the American Revolution. Don Andres Almonester y Roxas -1781 - purchased land on east bank between presentday Bell Street a d Orleans Avenue.
Between December 15,1720 and December 31,1721, 330 German settlers arrived at Fort St. Jean and traveled Bayou Road to the Mississippi River, then to what is now the city of Des Allemands.
In 1721, the Company of the Indies which administered the colony of Louisiana named New Orleans as capital of the Louisiana Territory, a territory far more extensive than present Louisiana.
Suggestions for the location of New Orleans were: Mouth of Bayou St. John, English Turn on the Mississippi, Bayou Manchac between the River and Lake Maurepas, Natchez.
A 1730 map shows a brick plant on the north side of Bayou Road (Portage) at Bayou St.John and 18 cabins across the road for workmen; the earliest recorded industry. In 1731, the Company of the Indies gave up its charter and returned administration of the colony to France.
The major agricultural products produced along the bayou - corn, indigo, some sugar cane (brown sugar and rum), myrtle wax, timber.
As incentive to remain in the colony, soldiers with honorable discharges were given first choice of wives from girls sent from France, a tract of land, a cow, a gun, 5 hens, an ax, hoe and rations for 3 years.
Grand Route St. John was constructed in 1810 when a new bridge was built at that location across the bayou 200 yards north of the old bridge built in 1750 at the site of Bayou Road (old portage).
Bayou St. John was the major port of New Orleans until the 1820’s when steam engines became popular for maritime use. Its reach was extended to Rampart Street by a canal authorized by Governor Carondelet in 1796. This canal was filled in 1927.
The Bayou remained a traffic artery until the early 1930’s. Congress declared it non-navigable in1936. Land along the Bayou has evolved into a tranquil and scenic area for residential and recreational use in the heart of our city, yet retains a feeling of remoteness from frenetic urban activity. This area has the largest collection of early plantation houses that are not copies or adaptations of historic European styles.
The French and Spanish colonials developed an indigenous plantation house, characteristic of the Caribbean-Gulf region. Their design is a direct expression of a sensitivity to the natural setting - a graceful response to Nature’s gifts and threats.
The Bayou St. John area and the Vieux Carre are the most unique settlements in our City and perhaps the Country.

Modern Developments Regarding Both Flood and Environmental Protection

The mouth of Bayou St. John, for a cast of officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and Orleans Levee District, represents more than anything a point of vulnerability. Their priority is simple: keep storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain at bay, and prevent the transformation of a natural waterway into a highway for delivering floodwater to New Orleans' heart.
But for an increasingly vocal alliance of New Orleanians, the junction of the bayou and the vast lake represents much more than a flood protection issue. The infusion of brackish waters from the Pontchartrain, allowed at only an incremental level for decades, is critical to improving and sustaining the health of a lovely waterway important to residents' quality of life -- and central to the story of the founding of New Orleans.
"It really is a treasure, " said Greg Ernst, a resident of Mid-City, which surrounds the bayou's southern tip. "It captivates anyone who sees it."
Such impassioned sentiments were much in evidence one recent November evening as the corps called a hearing at the University of New Orleans. Federal officials were preparing to announce whether, as a flood protection measure, they would permanently seal off the mouth of the bayou from the lake.
Many fretted that Bayou St. John already is stifled ecologically by massive closed gates, called sector gates; only a trickle of water from the lake is allowed through three tiny sluice gates, part of the same control structure.
Sealing off the water flow completely, bayou advocates said, would be disastrous.
The corps announced it wouldn't attempt to seal off the bayou, opting instead to raise the sector gate structure an additional foot to improve flood protection. But the bayou supporters, who wanted a plan to allow more water flow between the lake and the bayou, were hardly mollified.
Several residents commented after the corps' presentation that the sector gates should be opened, allowing the return of a natural flow of water into a bayou that reaches to within four blocks of Canal Street.
"Are you going to allow for continuous inflow of water, so that it becomes a viable waterway instead of a stagnant lagoon?" asked Susan Garcia of the Lake Vista Property Owners Association, directing her comments to corps and Orleans Levee Board officials.
Neighborhood organizations, environmental groups and Mid-City businesses are pulling together to lobby for opening the sector gates and removing an outdated flood control dam nearby, steps they say can enhance the health, beauty and economic potential of the bayou without hampering flood protection. But they are encountering stiff resistance.

Flood protection only

The corps says it is responsible only for flood protection aspects of the gates and has no say in their operation. The Orleans Levee District, which controls use of the gates, along with a small stretch of the bayou from the gates to the outdated dam, dismisses the suggestion, saying the gates were never meant to be opened and closed regularly.
As it stands, water exchange with the lake is controlled by an informal system where residents, City Park representatives or other unofficial watchdogs monitor water levels in the bayou and ask the Levee District to open or close the sluice gates. To keep the large sector gates open year-round would require increased staffing and money, though Levee District officials haven't specified how much of each would be required.
For bayou supporters, the issue goes beyond hydrology and bureaucracy.
They seek both a literal and a symbolic return to the bayou's natural state as a link to Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico -- one directly responsible for the founding of New Orleans.
It was nearly 310 years ago that two brothers, Pierre and Jean-Baptiste le Moyne, better known as Sieurs d'Iberville and Bienville, founded New Orleans at the spot where a foot path used by American Indians connected the river's bank with the bayou.
The bayou would become New Orleans' main harbor until the steamboat became the dominant trade vessel in the 1820s.

Lackluster fishing

Bayou advocates and environmentalists say opening the sector gates and fostering the natural ebb and flow of the lake will spur the growth of aqueous grasses and improve the health and quantity of fish and shellfish. Making the bayou healthier and opening it up to the lake, advocates say, will attract more recreational visitors and businesses that cater to them.
"There's nothing wrong with the water quality right now, but we're trying to enhance the habitat value of the system, " said Mark Schexnayder, a coastal adviser with the LSU AgCenter who monitors conditions in City Park lagoons and the bayou. "There are crabs and there are fish in the bayou, but it's just not the way it used to be because there's not that natural flow back and forth."
The state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries stocked the bayou several years ago, but the water habitat isn't vibrant enough to sustain a wildlife population, he said.
"In a healthy system, you don't have to stock a lot of fish, because it's self-sustaining, " Schexnayder said.
Especially since Hurricane Katrina, potential sources of flooding, no matter how mild, command the attention of local and federal officials. And with larger flood-control issues to tend to, the corps and Orleans Levee District both seem eager to shelve the idea of opening the sector gates regularly.
"The structure wasn't meant to be opened as many times as we're talking about, " said Steven Spencer, executive director of the Levee District.

Open the gates

But according to the sector gates' original engineer, Edmond Pepper, the gates were supposed to be kept open and tested regularly.
"The sector gate control structure was designed to remain in the open position, except in the case of impending storm surge or high water, " Pepper wrote in a Dec. 1 letter to Bancroft Park Civic Association President Robert Counce. "A study was performed by this office of the effect of various lake levels and their effect on water surface elevations on Bayou St. John. The study demonstrated that the sector gates could remain open; and in the case of rising lake elevations, that sufficient time existed to close the gates without downstream flooding."

Divided oversight

Complicating decisions about water-level management are the bayou's multiple layers of jurisdiction. The corps is responsible for maintenance of the current sector gates. But operation of the gates and oversight of the bayou from the gates to an outdated dam structure at Robert E. Lee Boulevard -- left out of the federal flood control system when the new gates were built in 1992 -- falls under the levee district's jurisdiction.
City Park controls a nearly three-mile stretch of the waterway from the old flood control structure, commonly dubbed the waterfall dam, down to the Harding Drive bridge, or Magnolia Bridge, by Cabrini High School. Along the way, the bayou supplies water to several of the City Park lagoons through three weirs. The bayou ends at the Sewerage & Water Board's Lafitte Street pumping station, leaving the S&WB responsible for the waterway from the old Harding Drive bridge to the terminus.
The number of authorities involved makes operating even the trio of small sluice gates in the flood-gate structure, akin to mail slots on a door, a logistical headache, residents said. The Levee District is responsible for opening the sluice gates when some interested party requests it; the S&WB, meanwhile, is responsible for opening a drain tied to the city drainage system when the bayou's water level gets too high. However, there is no formal chain of command for monitoring water levels and deciding when to activate the sluice gates or the drainage line at the opposite end of the bayou.
"We watch it, and I don't know if we're responsible, but we'll call (S&WB) up and ask them to drain it, " said Spencer, who could not verify whether a Levee District employee regularly monitors water levels.
Bayou experts say a detailed protocol would need to be in place to operate the sector gates year-round. Helpful data from previous studies are available, and crafting a set of guidelines is far from impossible.

City Park grant

City Park has secured a $300,000 grant from the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, part of which will go toward a monitoring system for the lagoons and the bayou, providing measurements of water levels and quality. The grant also promises to help pay for a $200,000 project to remove the old waterfall dam, according to Schexnayder.
The monitors are expected to be installed in about a half-dozen locations in early 2009, but City Park or other local officials must raise another $100,000 to ensure removal of the waterfall dam, he said.
Money will also play a major role in implementing any new procedure for operating the sector gates, officials said.
"Currently, we don't have that in the budget, " said Bob Turner, executive director of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, which governs the Levee District.
"I don't think anyone has run the numbers on it, but you're looking at four or five people dedicated to the task . . . as well as the additional costs associated with operating it much more frequently. It would require a number of agencies to get involved."
Despite resistance in official circles, bayou supporters have formed a broad coalition to back restoration of water flow between the bayou and lake. The Bayou St. John Conservation Alliance held its inaugural meeting last week, where 19 neighborhood groups, schools, environmental groups and businesses signed a resolution seeking to make the sector gates operable and remove the dam.
"For all these people to come together, that really shows something, " Counce said. "Any time 19 groups in New Orleans get together to sign anything, it's a big deal."

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1. Bayou St. John is not that old “ earth-wise”.....How Old Is It ?
2. What was the bayou’s original or indian name ?
3. When did Bienville find the mouth of the bayou ?
4. From the beginning the bayou was used for transporting people and goods...... what year did Congress declare it non-navigable ?
5. Man made structures must be in place on the bayou to address what hurricane induced event ?
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