MYETTE POINT — Looking at more water than he has seen in a long time in the Atchafalaya Basin, Anthony Tabb of Abbeville wondered how much longer he and other boaters would be able to launch their boats at Myette Point Boat Landing. 

The recently built boat landing, which opened in October, was one of the last along the lenth of the West Atchafalaya Basin Protection Levee access points where tow vehicles didn’t have to drop boats off the levee as of Friday. That could change some time this weekend as the Atchafalaya River continues to rise to its expected crest at 17 feet at Myette Point, 24.5 feet at Butte La Rose, according to the National Weather Service.

“This probably will be underwater tomorrow (Saturday). They didn’t have no water on here this morning,” Tabb, said as he looked at water on the concrete apron after pulling his crawfish skiff out.

The flooding Mississippi River has made the Atchafalaya River even higher than normal this spring because of the recent opening of the Morganza Spillway. But the Atchafalaya River’s predicted crest was lowered significantly from the near-record 27 feet at Butte La Rose forecast earlier by the NWS.

Tabb, who was born and raised in nearby Baldwin, said he and others probably had another two days “at the max” to practically and safely launch boats at the wide boat ramp. The Myette Point river gauge was showing 13 1/2 feet at the time.

About three-quarter of the vast shell parking lot was inundated by water, also, river water that was coming in from the east and south sides. It was about 3 to 4 inches deep in areas closest to the river.

There were 15 tow vehicles and boat trailers, their tires in the water, lined neatly between the slots.

Tabb, a full-time commercial crawfisherman, said he got eight sacks worth from his crawfish traps set in Schwing Cove on the east side of the Atchafalaya River. Changing water conditions were beginning to affect the harvest, he said.

He said he has seen the water as high as 4 or 5 feet from the top of the levee. But that was many years ago, he said.

About 30 minutes later, his brother Richard Tab of Baldwin and Richard Tabb’s daughter Alaina Tabb, a 2009 graduate of West St. Mary High School, motored into the boat boat landing after crawfishing in Schwing Cove. They had 10 sacks of crawfish in the boat, he said, down from the previous day’s haul of 12.

Like his brother, Richard Tabb wondered how much longer they’d be able to launch at the concrete boat ramp. If the water got too high, he said, he would just drop the boat in off the levee.

St. Mary Parish Chief Administrative Officer Bo LaGrange said parish and state officials are monitoring the site. Utlity crews were sent there Wednesday to shut off the power to the parking lot lights and the comfort station, and piling extensions were added last weekend to the floating docks so they wouldn’t go under, LaGrange said.

The St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office, parish officials and levee district board members would make any decision on whether to close Myette Point Boat Landing, LaGrange said later Friday afternoon.

“It’s a day-to-day thing,” he said.

Reid Miller of Franklin, an engineer who designed the new boat launch site, said it was built for a river stage height of 13.5 feet at Myette Point, higher than U.S. Army Corps of Engineer specifications ordered for a height of 12.5 feet.

Miller said the comfort station was built to tolerate floodwater.

“We expect to get water here some time. The bathroom was built to withstand mud and withstand being washed out,” he said.

While sport fishing traffic here was nonexistent, as might be expected, crawfishermen weren’t the only ones at the boat ramp Friday. 

Carol Ashley, 73, of Franklin, showed up without a boat to determine if it was usable. Ashley said he has a camp along Bayou Crook Chene and wanted to get out there to feed and tend to about 100 head of cattle.

Clint Hebert, 47, a New Iberia electrician, rode up in a pickup truck pulling an alunimun boat. Glenn Hebert and his son Brady Hebert were with him as they put in to go check on his houseboat camp in a nearby cove around Myette Point.

“Extend the ropes, hopefully, is all we have to do,” said Clint Hebert, an electrician.

Farther up the levee, at the private Charenton Shell Beach Boat Landing, boats were launching and docking Friday on the shell road that leads to the site. Seven tow vehicles were parked on the other side of the levee.

The shell road was submerged about 45 yards from the entrance gates, which were barely visible.

This spring’s high water definitely will leave an impact on the Spillway, also known as the nation’s last great overflow swamp. It will affect as much as 800,000 acres of wetlands, navigational waterways and recreational and commercial fishery waters in the Sportsman’s Paradise, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. 

A USGS spokesman said last week the federal agency will monitor sediment dynamics during and after the flkood to better understand the impacts on the ecosystem.

Some islands in the Basin may be eroded while others in the central and lower Basin may increase significantly in area and height as new sediment is deposited, said USGS scientist Daniel Kroes. Siltation is a concern, he and others have agreed.