Seeing the Mississippi River firsthand

During the final five weeks of my employment at the USDA Sugarcane Research Unit, following our move to Tennessee, I have been staying with Greg and Monica Stock who live in Thibodaux, LA.  Since they live only 25 miles from the famed Oak Alley Plantation near Vacherie, LA along the Mississippi River, I decided to take a leisurely Sunday afternoon drive to see what the river looked like at flood stage.  For southern Louisiana, the day couldn't have been more perfect, weather wise, with lots of sunshine, relatively low humidity, and pleasant temperatures. There wasn't a large crowd of people trying to see the river at the front of Oak Alley as I had expected, yet while I was there for about 20 minutes, several people pulled over with the express purpose of ascending the 20-ft levee to see the river, as I had done.  My strongest impression of the river was that it was flowing very fast, much like any large river would do going through a narrow strait.  During the entire time I was on top of the levee, I saw no river traffic.  I could see barges on the other side of the river that were tied down.  Of course it is always a funny feeling to see how much higher the river is than the land it is passing by, including the Oak Alley Plantation itself.  The three photos I included show the Oak Alley Plantation; then looking in the opposite direction, the river, and finally, a photo of me taken by some onlookers.  My only other significant observation on this trip was how the sugarcane is starting to really show stress effects from the severe drought we are going through in southern Louisiana.  It is indeed ironic that we are going through a severe drought while simultaneously experiencing flooding from the Mississippi River.

Terrebonne Parish at risk with Mississippi River flooding

With the opening of the Morganza Spillway beginning today, low lying areas in Terrebonne Parish are almost certainly going to go under water.   This includes Gibson, Bayou Black where several swamp tours operate, Southdown Mandalay, and Bull Run Road where our USDA Farm is located.  Beyond this, it is a wide open question as to how serious flooding will get in Terrebonne Parish as shown by the Army Corps of Engineers map at left.  We are being assured by government officials that Houma should remain dry, but we all too keenly remember how levees didn't hold up in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.  It is not outside the realm of possibility that the Mississippi River could change course under a massive flooding situation, changing to the more direct and steeper flow through the Atchafalaya River to Morgan City, which is where it used to primarily flow, going back enough years.  Obviously, this would be catastrophic to all of the coastal Parishes in Southeastern Louisiana.  Peak flooding is expected in this area around May 23, a little over a week from now. 

Then and Now

First photo above was taken on June 23, 2002, shortly after we moved into our new home in Louisiana.  Second photo was taken yesterday, March 9, 2011, nearly nine years later, as we prepare to move to Tennessee.  This has been a wonderful home for us, and served us well over years we lived here.

Life on the Bayou soon to be Life on the Cumberland Plateau

Tomorrow (April 8) we close on our home in Houma, Louisiana. We will be allowed to stay in our former home one additional week.  Next week Monday - Wednesday (April 11-13), we plan to move all of our belongings into a moving van trailer, then stay through Friday (April 15), using sleeping bags, folding chairs, and a card table.  On Saturday (April 16), we travel to Tracy City, Tennessee, getting there early enough to complete the paperwork that will allow us to have the keys to our new home.  We couldn't have cut it any closer, given that the earliest possible date we would be allowed to access our new home (from when it was formally completed, inspected, and a mandatory10-day waiting period passed) is just about the very day we arrive.  The moving van is expected to arrive on Tuesday, April 19, and we will have the balance of the week of April 17-23 to get everything moved in and start getting settled.  Judy will remain in Tennessee, and I will fly back to Houma most likely on Saturday, April 23, to fulfill my work obligations.  My official retirement day is May 31.  However, I will "wrap it up" on Friday, May 27, the following Monday being an official holiday (Memorial Day), Tuesday being taken as accrued vacation time.  At the moment, I plan to stay with the Stock family in Thibodaux between April 23-May 27.  They have a large home with only Greg and Monica living in it at the moment; they were gracious enough to offer me to stay with them.  They are planning some landscaping and gardening, so I can hopefully repay them "in kind" by assisting them with their plans.  Judy and I very much look forward to settling in the Cumberlands, and living out our dreams there. 

How will the government shutdown affect us, if it happens?  Not too much, since we were planning to be taking accrued vacation time over the next two weeks anyway.  Hopefully the Legislative and Executive branches will have settled their differences by then and government can return to work when I am ready to return to work.

Utah Lake Bridge Controversy

A bridge over Utah Lake has been proposed and hotly debated in Utah Valley.  It is projected that the valley will double in population from the current nearly 600K to1.2M by 2040, and that the population west of Utah Lake will go from 40K to at least 250K.  From the standpoint of added time and fuel expended, not having a bridge over Utah Lake will become wasteful for a rapidly increasing number of commuters who will be traveling twice daily around the lake to get to the central business (Provo/Orem) area.  The bridge is opposed on the grounds of disrupting migratory waterfowl, being too expensive, and being built prematurely.  Here is a detailed document with pics of the proposed bridge from various vantage points, including those used in this blog entry.

Having lived in southern Louisiana for over ten years, it becomes hard to understand why there would be much controversy as to whether to build a bridge over Utah Lake.  Try going anywhere from New Orleans without going over a substantial amount of elevated highway not much different than is needed to go over Utah Lake which itself is only 12' deep at its deepest point.  The causeway over Lake Pontchartrain is 24 miles compared to the 6 miles proposed to go over Utah Lake.  The stretch of elevated freeway from Ponchatoula to the Mississippi River (I-55, I-10, I-310) with nothing but swamp and open water underneath, is nearly 50 miles.  Maybe the die hard opponents of building the bridge need to come live in New Orleans for a summer. Let them go on I-10 from Slidell to New Orleans to Baton Rouge to Lafayette.  Each leg will take them over far more open water than the 6-mile proposed bridge at the north end of Utah Lake.  And by the way, they will see plenty of bird life down here, for those who worry about how a bridge over the north end of Utah Lake is going to disrupt bird migration as it relates to the lake.  As to the prohibitive cost of building the bridge ($300M to $600M, depending on the estimate), perhaps Utah needs to get an estimate from those who built the elevated highways in Louisiana.  These estimates seem excessive, but then again, what do I know?

One final thought:  We have committed to living in Tennessee and look very much forward to what we believe will be a rich experience there.  If we had decided to return to Utah Valley, living on the west side of Utah Lake would have had enormous appeal for me.  The west side is a respite from the rat race on the east side. Yet it is close enough to have an amazing view of the "big city" across the lake and the Wasatch Mountain backdrop behind it.  One example of a future planned community is Mosida Orchards...worth checking out for those who live in the general area.

Tale of two weather contrasts: Truckee, CA versus New Orleans, LA

While eating breakfast this morning, I pulled up the Weather Channel and was surprised to learn that snow depth at Truckee, California (near Lake Tahoe) is about 9 feet.  Truckee has received ~6 feet of snow in the past week, and is expecting at least 2 feet more through the weekend.  Ski resorts around Lake Tahoe,  where the snow is much deeper, normally close in early May.  With snowfall records occurring this year, they may stay open well into June, and the locals are ecstatic.

By stark contrast, New Orleans is expected to reach 83 F today, which would be near the record high for this date (85 F).  The sugarcane crop in Louisiana appears to be nearly a month further along than usual in early spring growth.  Our spring garden is looking great as well.  We won't be benefiting from it this year, since it will belong to someone else after we close on our house early next month.  But we're enjoying lettuce, radishes, and onions from it already.

Sweeteners, caloric and non-caloric

We had a group of college students from the Dallas area visit several government research facilities in our area over their spring break.  They spent a day with us.  One of our scientists, Dr. Paul White, was asked questions about sugar (i.e., table sugar or granulated sucrose) in comparison to other sweeteners, including how their chemical structures differed from sucrose.  After the tour, Paul developed a graphic that the rest of the scientists could use whenever the subject might come up again in future visits by the public.  Paul graciously allowed me to use his graphic as the basis for a personal blog entry.  I rearranged the order of the sweeteners and embellished his original graphic with color.  The chemical structures of the various sweeteners were taken from Wikipedia.

Sucrose is the standard by which all other sweeteners are measured.  High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is the next most important caloric sweetener, but it has declined as of late for two reasons, 1) a negative image in comparison to table sugar, and 2) increased prices for corn which has made table sugar increasingly cost competitive.  The corn industry has worked hard to overcome the negative image that the public has of HFCS, and are now seeking permission from the FDA to use the name "corn sugar" on food labels.  Commercials from the corn industry state, "whether it's corn sugar or cane sugar, your body can't tell the difference. Sugar is sugar."  Natural caloric sweeteners of lesser importance include honey, maple syrup, etc.

Non-caloric sweeteners have had less impact on cane and beet sugar consumption than HFCS.  But their impact is still substantial.  We have essentially gone through four generations of non-caloric sweeteners, namely saccharin (Sweet'N Low), aspartame (Equal), sucralose (Sweeta), and now Stevia glycosides from the Stevia plant, sold in various formulations as Stevia, Truvia, etc.  The latter is a natural product.  The others are artificial sweeteners, though sucralose is a sucrose molecule modified (some OH groups replaced with Cl) in a way that makes it 600 times as sweet as sucrose.