Underwater debris makes for hazardous waters

At the eastern edge of Lake Pontchartrain, a half-mile out from Chef Menteur Highway, a half-dozen white buoys mark an unseen hazard resting on the mud bottom.

It's a pickup truck, fishers say, catapulted into the lake by Hurricane Katrina's 15-foot surges. The mast of a 42-foot sailboat pokes out of the murky waters a mile away. A marooned shrimp trawler, rusted and covered in barnacles, rises from the 30-foot-deep Chef Pass channel.

Nearly two years after Katrina and Hurricane Rita, scattered bits of houses, boats, cars and appliances still lurk in the marshes and lakes of coastal Louisiana.

With state officials and FEMA still haggling over reimbursement for the cleanup, no comprehensive program is in place to remove the underwater debris. Meanwhile, since last fall, crews in Mississippi have been using FEMA money to pick up marine debris and are set to finish the project by the end of the year.

Unlike debris on land, much of the marine debris is out of sight, posing hidden dangers to fishers and boaters who ply the waters. Collisions with submerged objects require costly and time-consuming repairs for commercial fishers, whose industry is still piecing itself together after the storms.

Many fishers avoid regular trips in Lake St. Catherine and parts of eastern Lake Pontchartrain, referring to the historically rich fishing grounds as "the debris fields."
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