Levee wandering

Along the west bank of the Mississippi River is a 640 mile levee, the longest continuous levee in the world. Sunday, Jim and I took an auto tour of the portion of that levee that protects farmlands, buildings, and people near Lake Chicot, and keeps the lake from being reclaimed by the Mississippi during floods. 

We set off on a gravel road, went across a couple of cattle crossings, drove up an embankment and found ourselves on something similar to earthen Indian mounds we’ve visited.   The levees here average 20 feet in height and at their bases are about 10 times as wide as they are high.  It was kind of like driving on top of one of the Pyramids -- if the pyramid was made out of dirt and the top three-fourths were cut off. And there was sand all around.  And there were cows instead of camels.  Ok, so maybe it’s not like the pyramids.   But I was driving, and it seemed like a long way down.

Some of what we saw along our 30-mile drive:

--The former location of a town called Columbia, once the county seat.  Nothing is left now, as in 1855 part of it was washed away by the Mississippi and in 1864 Union forces burned down the rest.  

--”Borrow pits” where dirt was removed to build the levees; the pits are now full of water and we saw dozens of ducks, plus egrets and herons.   

-- “Battures,” or woods between the levees and the river.  

--Huge, flat farms fields protected by the levees,  hundreds of cattle and horses.  

The road on top of the level was all gravel and very flat.  A brochure we got about the levee tour said to expect a "cow pie mine field."  It wasn't that bad, but we did see lots of cattle.

A view of a “borrow pit” where soil was removed to build the earthen levees.  Some of the levees along the Mississippi are as high as 40 feet.

Jim inspects the Lake Chicot Pumping Plant, which was built in 1985.   Creation of levees and clearing of land for agriculture changed drainage patterns and turned Chicot Lake into a barren mudhole.  The Pumping Plant puts drainage water back into the Mississippi and restored Lake Chicot.