Mile 87.6 - LBD Meraux Water Intake

87.6 LBD Meraux Water Intake

Water intake for the City of Meraux, just one of the many cities below Baton Rouge that draws water from the biggest river in North America. We all live downstream. It's hard to wrap words around that feeling and hard to describe it to people who actually live here because tap water is so nondescript and normal. But I think if one group is going to understand it and be changed by it, it's going to be paddlers, who have seen all of this stuff. One particularly morbid aspect of this discussion: did any of you paddlers know that there's no federal regulations regarding funeral home waste? Some states won't let embalmers drain blood and organs into city sewerage systems, but most states don't care.... So we're drinking dead body guts too. Especially downstream of New Orleans, which has one of the highest homicide rates in the nation. But take heart: on the Ganges they burn the deceased on the banks of the river as an accepted sacred practice. This ritual takes place in Varanasi, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Those lacking the means to be cremated simply let their relative’s bodies float off down the river. Millions of people bathe, wash and imbibe the waters of the Ganges downstream of Varanasi. The Ganges is said to be good drinking water, and have restorative effects. Against all reasoning the river seems to be self-rejuvenating. The Ganges cleans itself as it flows along towards the Indian Ocean. The same must be taking place along the Mississippi River, which seems to maintain its relative health all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.