Atchafalaya River
The Atchafalaya River is a distributary of the Mississippi and Red rivers, approximately 170 mi (270 km) long, in south central Louisiana in the United States. It is navigable and provides a significant industrial shipping channel for the state of Louisiana, as well as the cultural heart of the Cajun Country. The maintenance of the river as a navigable channel of the Mississippi has been a significant project of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for over a century. The river is known locally as the "Tchafalya".It is formed near Simmesport at the confluence of the Red with the Mississippi, where the Mississipi connects to the Red by the 7 mi (11 km) Old River. It receives the water of the Red as well as part of the water of the Mississippi, which itself continues in its main channel to the southeast. It meanders south as a channel of the Mississippi, through extensive levees and floodways, past Morgan City, and empties into the Gulf of Mexico in Atchafalaya Bay approximately 15 mi (25 km) south of Morgan City.
The Atchafalya Basin, the surrounding plain of the river, is filled in bayous, cypress swamps, and marshes. The basin suspeptible to heavy flooding and is sparsely inhabited. The few roads that cross it follow the tops of levees. Interstate 10, which is on elevated pillars south of Baton Rouge, is a continuous bridge across the basin.
Geologically, the Atchafalaya has served periodically as the main channel of the Mississippi through delta switching, a process that has built the extensive delta plain of the river. Since the early 20th century, because of manmade alterations in the channel the Mississippi, the Mississippi has sought to change its main channel to Atchafalaya. By law a regulated proportion of the water from the Mississippi is diverted into the Atchafalaya at the Old River Control Structure.
The control of the rivers floods, along with those of the Mississippi, has become a controversial issue in recent decades. It is now widely suspected that the channeling of the river and subsequent lowering of siltation has resulted in severe degradation of the surrounding wetlands as well as widespread submerging of populated and agricultural lands of the bayou country. The disappearance of the delta country is considered by many environmentalists, as well as by the State of Louisiana, to be one of the most significant ecological threats in the United States. The loss of the delta lands was discussed by author Mike Tidwell in his 2003 book Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast.
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