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Davis Pond advisory president says diversion has limited basin-wide effect, pushes for stronger operations
Summary
President Matt Jewell told the Coastal Zone Advisory Committee that a 'prism calculation' shows Davis Pond at maximum flow would account for roughly 3.5% of total basin flow, and he urged operational changes and a parish-backed resolution to protect and run the diversion more aggressively.
President Matt Jewell delivered a semiannual update to the Saint Charles Parish Coastal Zone Advisory Committee and said new calculations show Davis Pond’s influence on the broader Barataria basin is smaller than commonly assumed. "At Davis Pond maximum flow, which I think is 10,600 or 10,500, you would have a 3.5% impact on total flow in that basin," Jewell said, arguing the diversion can be run more often without the widespread impacts critics fear.
Jewell told the committee the pond has produced local ecological benefits when run more aggressively: grasses recovered and water clarity improved in Lake Cotawatchie and parts of Lake Salvador. He cited a presentation by Sable Murphy that found "Davis Pond was not having any impact on brown shrimp season" and said the parish will pursue operational rules based on local ecology rather than distant CRIMS triggers tied to oyster consultations.
Jewell said the parish is working with CPRA staff and the Data Spine advisory group to refine operations and remove or recast the oyster consultation linkage. He also reported the parish received $4,000,000 from CPRA to engineer and design an extension of the Salvador shoreline protection project, and said the parish will draft a resolution — to be approved by the committee and parish council — to present at the next Davis Pond meeting to show unified support.
The committee agreed to designate Ryan Lambert to represent the parish on the Davis Pond resolution. Jewell said the parish is exploring an additional upper-basin diversion study and operational changes focused on immediate ecological monitoring to guide future runs of Davis Pond.
