Atchafalaya Basin Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Meeting

This past Wednesday while interning at the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), my mentor Glenn Constant took me with him to the Atchafalaya Basin Technical Advisory Group (TAG) Meeting. The meeting was located downtown and I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

This TAG meeting had specialists from every field including Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), the Army Corp of Engineers, LSU Renewable Natural Resource Department, the Lafayette wing of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and many more. Mainly they talked about the 2017 annual plan as well as heavy amounts of sediment entering Dog Leg Canal and other ongoing projects for the upcoming year.

The Dog Leg Canal was an issue I had never heard about but it was quite interesting. They are trying to propose wide and deep sediment traps to try and control the amount of sediment that is entering into the canal. In April of 2013 the sediment trap was deep, and this is what they want to see, but in April of 2014 the sediment trap is a bit shallower. This shows that the canal is filling in at a faster rate than expected. The more the canal fills in, the lower the dissolved oxygen in the water. In warmer seasons, the organisms living in this canal are pulling more nutrients out of the already low dissolved oxygen water, which leads to hypoxia. This is why they are proposing to place wide and deep sediment traps in the Dog Leg Canal, but this canal is a popular area for traffic and pedestrians may not agree with the sediment traps.

I think it was interesting to watch all of these very intelligent people from all different backgrounds have a discussion about what would be best for these areas of concern as a whole. It was an aspect of this field that I’ve never seen before and it really opened my eyes to something that I could eventually be doing with my life.