The Lower Mississippi River Water Trail

121 LBD – Old Pan American Southern Oil Refinery

The Pan American Southern Refinery was built on Destrehan Plantation in the early 1900’s and produced tar, heating oil, gasoline, lubricating oil, asphalt, and other petroleum products until it was closed in 1958.

120.8 RBD Old Luling Ferry Ramp (Defunct)

Paddlers can locate primitive access to the town of Luling via old Ferry Landing. A small beach forms at low water levels, within a cut in an otherwise rip-rap landing. If you hit it at the right water level, you can paddle into a small protected cove for a landing safe from waves. This landing goes under at flood stage, but you can paddle to the levee anyway. This is an inhabited location (trailers) and rough place. Do not leave your vessel or gear unattended. If this place looks too weird or difficult, continue downstream around fleeted barges another couple hundred yards to second possible choice for landing, which is just over the levee from Sugarhouse Road in Luling. Just over the levee is downtown Luling for resupply at Triangle Grocery, and some choices for food including Country Corner, Mocha Latte Coffee & Care and Jazz Cafe.

Luling/Destrehan/St. Rose/Ama Industrial Reach

The zealous claws of Chemical Corridor close again around the Mississippi River below the Luling Bridge with Wall Street superstars ADM, Monsanto, and International Matex. ARTCO is a transportation subsidiary of ADM. Paddlers, you will be hemmed in by non-stop fleeting as you pass by Ama, made tighter by the presence of some freighter anchorages in addition. The East bank fleeting subsides below Kenner, but West bank fleeting continues unbroken to the Avondale Bend at Haggaman. The river here flows over cable crossings by Louisiana Power & Light, Southern Bell Telegraph/Telephone Company, and pipelines by Shell, Texaco, and Air Products Inc. Deft paddlers will be rewarded with amazing views of the interior of America’s global grain and bulk goods exporting market as corn, wheat, rice, sorghum, and soybeans are scooped or sucked out of the same barges you have been paddling beside for thousands of miles, and are dumped onto conveyor belts, or other apparatus, and then reloaded onto sea-going freighters bound for far flung continents over the seven seas.

120.7 LBD ARTCO Tulane Destrehan Dry Bulk Transfer and Rose Launch Service, Destrehan Landing

 

120.5 LBD ADM/Growmark Destrehan Elevator Wharf

Archer Daniels Midland grain terminal features 7 loading spouts and a 5,500,000 bushel capacity.

120.5 LBD Bunge Corp North America, Destrehan Elevator Wharf

Bunge grain terminal bristles with 8 loading spouts and a 3,900,000 bushel capacity.

120 RBD Monsanto Luling Docks No’s 2, 3, and 4

 

120 RBD – Monsanto, OxyChem, and Air Products

Roundup is one of the most commonly used herbicides in the US. Easy to find, to use, and very effective, it has become the “evil of choice” for weed control. This is nowhere more true than in the jungly conditions of the Southern United States. Monsanto produces the herbicides glyphosate and dicamba at its Luling plant, including glyphosate based Roundup. Dicamba is a selective herbicide in the chlorophenoxy family of chemicals. Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses known to compete with commercial crops. It was discovered to be a herbicide by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970. Monsanto brought it to market in the 1970s under the trade name Roundup. In 1992 Occidental Chemical purchased Monsanto’s isocyanurate plant. The OxyChem Luling Monsanto Production Plant produces chlorinated isocyanurate and cyanic acid. It is operated by Monsanto for OxyChem. Air Products has a 100,000,000 cubic feet per day hydrogen plant which supplies hydrogen to Monsanto. Momentive Specialty Chemicals, owned by Hexion, is building a formaldehyde plant in Monsanto’s facility to supply Monsanto with formaldehyde.

Toxic Releases (TRI) for 2013 in pounds: Monsanto Luling: Air: 43,189; Water: 109,940. OxyChem Luling Monsanto Production Plant: Air: 94,168. Air Products Luling: Air: 3,392.

Roundup

Roundup is one of the most commonly used herbicides in the US. Easy to find, to use, and very effective, it has become the “evil of choice” for weed control. This is nowhere more true than in the jungly conditions of the Southern United States. Monsanto produces the herbicides glyphosate and dicamba at its Luling plant, including glyphosate based Roundup. Dicamba is a selective herbicide in the chlorophenoxy family of chemicals. Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide used to kill weeds, especially annual broadleaf weeds and grasses known to compete with commercial crops. It was discovered to be a herbicide by Monsanto chemist John E. Franz in 1970. Monsanto brought it to market in the 1970s under the trade name Roundup.

119.3 LBD GNOTS – Reserve, St. Rose East Bank Fleet Mooring

 

119.2 LBD Crescent Towing & Salvage, St. Rose Wharf