132.4 LBD ArcelorMittal (Bayou Steel)

ArcelorMittal, formerly Bayou Steel, produces steel materials including billets, equal leg angles, unequal leg angles, flats, channels, standard beams and wide flange beams. There is also an automobile shredder and barge wrecking service at the facility. ArcelorMittal released 22,686 pounds of toxins into the air in 2013 according to the EPA Toxic Release Inventory. (Paul Orr)

132 - 131.5 RBD Bonnet Carre Island

Beautiful low/med water camping, with storm protection from all directions, but goes under around 12NO.

Newly Discovered Island! Perfect for paddlers seeking refuge, but very mosquito prone in its season, and only good in low and medium water levels. Completely underwater around 12NO. Bonnet Carre Island is the very last “real” island on the Lower Mississippi (until you get to the Birdsfoot Mississippi Delta) - that is an island with its own river banks, its own sandbars (in low water), a forested top, a defined perimeter, and its own micro-biota.

Bonnet Carre Island hugs the West Bank right bank descending at mile 132RBD. It is about a half mile long, and a hundred yards wide in its belly tapering to long skinny points at its extremities. But its size belies its importance to paddlers as the very last possible island before the Gulf. Islands are our favorite place for picnicking and camping. Why? Because no one else but paddlers (and other small boats) can reach us. Islands feel special, and they are. They are partly of the river, and partly of the land. Island time is like river time. Things happen when they’re supposed to happen. You are living on island time when you make decisions about your day based on what’s going on, and not by your watch. River time is the same. Thelonius Monk defined river time when he said: “people think I’m crazy because I eat when I’m hungry and I sleep when I’m tired.”

Like all Mississippi River islands, Bonnet Carre Island is bounded by main channel and back channel. Back Channel opens up around 3NO with a narrow canal that cuts through a top end sandbar. The island’s resident beaver maintain this canal in low water for access to the water behind the island. The island is bounded by sandy banks on its main channel river side, and muddy flats on the backside. Some of these banks are steep, some smoothly descend to water’s edge and allow an easy landing. Top end sandbar is best open spot for making landings and setting up camp, but if this doesn’t look good continue on downstream and take your choice as you paddle along. You could pull up into the open willow forests at bottom end for good wind protection during inclement weather, up to 10NO. The bottom end, like top end, gradually descends to a narrow shallow point, top end sandy, bottom end muddy. There are more possibilities for landings and campsites on the high ground on the mainland opposite bottom end.

Paddlers should cut through the back channel for a glimpse into a deep willow forest full of birds, amphibians, and some mammals like beaver and deer. There could be bobcat. Amphibians like red eared sliders, frogs, skinks and salamanders proliferate in the back channel, which has created a protected refuge. As previously mentioned there could be alligators, which you might want to keep an eye out for if you have children or dogs in your party, or if you go for a swim in the back channel. We found the top side of an alligator skull in the late fall of 2015 Rivergator exploratory expedition. The insects include dragonflies, wild bees, butterflies, moths, and is densely over-run with clouds of mosquitoes when the conditions are right (which could be anytime during the year except maybe winter. There are wild pigs and coyote, but you probably won’t see any evidence except for their tracks and scat. The bird life is diversifying as you paddle down the Mississippi towards the Gulf. Shrikes, crows, anhingas, terns, seagulls, sandpipers, egrets, herons, and pelicans are commonly seen.

You can paddle through the the back channel if the water is above 4NO gage. After passing over a shallow sandy shoals, you will paddle across a deep pool which might house alligators. This deep pool runs southward arcing very slightly to the east into the more shallow bottom end. You might have to do some poling, or maybe jump out and dragging your vessel over a shallow hump midway down the back channel. The shallows extend far down the bottom end until the exit back into main channel. Willow forests predominate on the island, while on the higher mainland side willows mix with sycamores, maples, alders, hackberries, and other trees typical of the bottomland hardwood forest. One of the appeals of Bonnet Carre Island is the extensive wetlands behind the island, protecting it from agriculture and industry over the levee, about a mile to the southwest. The Batture here is a mix of willow forests, mixed willow/sycamore forests, wetlands and some open bodies of water carved in previous river floods. If you walked through these deep wetlands you would eventually stumble into some giant blue holes carved into the floodplain near Hymelia, where the river tore through in the floods of 1903 and 1912. Keep reading below.