Laura Comeaux’s rubber boots squelched in the mire as she trekked through her family land, 128 acres of intermittently flooding forest situated on a sharp bend in the Mississippi River.
Morning light cut a path through the tree canopy of towering bald cypresses, Nuttall’s oaks and red maples and dappled the forest floor. Twittering birds eyed the movement below from high up in the branches.
A little more than three years ago, before the announcement that this land was in the path of a potential site for a new, $2 billion Mississippi River bridge south of Baton Rouge, a day like this would have felt different to Comeaux. It would have been free from the visions of destruction that, these days, accompany every trip into the Plaquemine Point woods.
“It’s like an endless worry,” Comeaux said. “It’s been three years this month that we were invited to the town hall meeting.”…