Lake Boeuf community seeks voice in decisions about maintaining lake's health

Lafourche Parish Council and community members are seeking a commission to govern the upkeep of Lake Boeuf.

Camp owners urged the Lafourche Parish Council to pass a resolution Wednesday, July 10, to seek Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrell’s opinion on whether they could establish the Lake Boeuf Game and Fish Commission and how it would interact with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

“It’s been going on for about seven or eight years that the lakes been dying away,” Joseph Roberts said. He said they want to reverse the trend, “and get it back to the way it was when we were kids. We want to leave something for our children, and my grandkids now, to go and see it like it was when we was small.”

Roberts is retired and lives in Thibodaux but goes down to his camp on the lake about two to three times a week. He said that in the past decade he’s seen the vegetation decline in the lake, and less vegetation means fewer animals, like ducks.

The Lake Boeuf community was spurred into action last year when the vegetation began to return. But in June 2023, the lake’s vegetation died off suddenly. According to Roberts, many thought it was from herbicides sprayed by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

“The lake was really looking healthy, and then, of course, something happened,” he said. “Some say it was a spray, some say it was that bug. I just can’t see them destroying it in a matter of weeks.”

A Facebook group was created, Make Lake Boeuf Great Again, where followers shared thoughts and photos on the matter. The group identified elected officials who could enact change and then organized meetings and shared elected officials’ email addresses.

The most recent posts were about the resolution and how it passed.

According to Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Aquatic Plant Control Biologist Michael Coulon, the department had not sprayed any herbicides at that point. They herbicide is known as 2,4-5 and is used to maintain the water hyacinth population. If left unchecked, the hyacinths block up the lake and the many connected waterways. It was the first year the department had hired an outside contractor to do the spraying, and according to Coulon the contractors hadn’t begun their work yet.

“The giveaway was that there was not a dead hyacinth in the lake,” he said.

Coulon investigated the matter, and the plant that suffered the brunt of the die-off was the American Lotus, which locals like to pick the edible buds off of. He said a bug known as the American Lotus Borer had hatched early that year and chewed through much of the plant.

“And they’re in there again this year. I’m seeing them all over,” Coulon said.

He said he didn’t know if it was the timing of the insects’ hatch but, “I’m as certain as I can be that that’s what it was.”

He said there’s not much the department can do about the bug because they will not spray insecticides on the lake. Even still, fighting back the water hyacinth helps the American Lotus.

The water hyacinth is a major threat to the lotus’s growth. The hyacinth becomes a large mat on the water’s surface, blocking out sunlight to the lotus. As they hyacinth floats around the lake, it can uproot the lotus.