BATON ROUGE, La. — For months, residents in the southeast corner of Louisiana have relied on bottled water for drinking and cooking, with the water from the faucet coming out salty.
Plaquemines Parish Councilman Mark “Hobbo” Cognevich, who represents the affected area, said grocery stores are constantly having to restock plastic water bottles, neighbors have reported getting rashes after showering, and, overall, the community is “fed up” with the situation.
“We are praying for rain,” Cognevich said. That is a sentiment echoed by officials across the state, as the drought-stricken Mississippi River’s flow is low and slow, allowing for salt water from the Gulf of Mexico to intrude upstream and threaten communities’ drinking supplies.
But with little precipitation in the forecast, officials are now hastily preparing for if and when the salt water will reach the state’s most populous city — New Orleans.
WHAT IS SALTWATER INTRUSION AND HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
Typically, the mighty flow of the Mississippi River — which stretches from northern Minnesota, through the center of the continental United States and out to the Gulf of Mexico — is enough to keep mass amounts of salt water from intruding too far upstream. But hot and dry conditions across the country this summer, triggering extreme drought, have affected the Mississippi. Officials expect the river volume to reach historic lows in the coming weeks.
Matt Roe, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans, said on Monday that when the flow of the river gets this weak, “it doesn’t have the mass and velocity needed to push the salt water back down around the mouth of the river.”
HOW IS THE SALT WATER AFFECTING LOUISIANA’S DRINKING WATER?
Many communities in south Louisiana rely on the Mississippi’s fresh water, with their water intake treatment facilities located along the river.
Unimpeded salt water continues to creep upriver and threatens municipal drinking water….
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