The Mouth Of The Mississippi River Is Moving North

Whether or not Louisiana is ready for it, there will be changes happening with the Mississippi River.  This was one of the issues addressed by several speakers that took park in a delta restoration conference this past Friday and Saturday.

Coast conference speakers warn that the mouth of the Mississippi River is moving north.  Officials in Louisiana, surrounding state and the Army Corps of Engineers are being warned that some sort of solutions to deal with the issues should be decided on.

Paul Kemp is the vice president of the Louisiana Audubon Society's Gulf Coast Initiative.  Kemp was one of the featured speakers at the event.  He says the moving of the mouth of the river to the north will be a way to get more sediment into coastal marshes where erosion is a major problem  Kemp says it's also a chance to focus on making navigation channels in the Mississippi river more stable.

Kemp was able to show pictures of the river from 1985 and 2011.  He said the sediment area from last year's flood of the Mississippi flowed out of the channel about 15 miles farther than it had in 1985.