Alligator Bayou
September 13, 2008
For fifteen miles out of Baton Rouge we follow a suburban highway lined with Waffle Houses and drive-thru daiquiri stores in search of a swamp rumored to be filled with friendly alligators and enthusiastic conservationists. In the midst of a sub-development of multi million dollar McMansions a giant wooden alligator - standing on its back legs, holding a sign reading "ALLIGATOR BAYOU" - suggests we've found our particular paradise.
 An old friend Marylee Orr, executive director of the LOUISIANA ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION NETWORK, has brought us here to prove to us that everything in her home state is not covered with an oil slick and that there many people scattered around the bayous and swamps committed to preserving rather than exploiting them. Hers is a job created when a son was born with lung disease related to chemical pollution; she thought it would last six months. Twenty-one years later she's still fighting, and occasionally winning. While drawing attention to polluters has long been de rigueur for LEAN, storm cleanup and rescue has become a new and unfortunately frequent responsibility. During Katrina and Rita, and now Gustav, she and her team have taken on the role of first responders carrying food, water and medical supplies into some of the most-damaged - and often most-ignored - neighborhoods.
Inside the gates of Alligator Bayou we're greeted with a loud Cajun whoop from one of the two partners, Frank Bonifay, who, for 15 years, have protected a big chunk of primitive wilderness - the 17,000 acre SPANISH LAKE BASIN - from intrusions by housing and strip mall developers, as well as gas and oil explorers. Timber cutters were threatening to deforest hundreds of acres of Bluff Swamp and in 1993 the two men sold a lucrative construction business and jumped into swamp preservation "We bought 1,500 acres just like that," says Frank, as we jump onto a flat-bottomed, twin-engine swamp boat, "to protect it from chain-sawers and drillers."
 Within minutes we're gliding over deep-green waters, playing hop-scotch as we move slowly through the swamp with a pair of white ibis which flit alongside, flying from fallen tree to high branch. Alligators break the surface and pelicans swoop low as Frank tells us - at a hundred miles a minute, which is apparently the only storytelling pace he knows - that there are a small handful of bobcats and hundreds of nutria in the Cyprus forests. "We're right in the middle of the Mississippi River Flyway," he says, "which is why there are always - always - birds here, somewhere between 250 and 300 different species."
This particular bayou was first seen by outsiders at the turn of the 18th century. The region was settled by a succession of Acadians, African, British, Canary Islanders, Creole, French, German, Scottish, Irish and Spanish and this bayou ultimately served them all as a slow-moving, backdoor link to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Frank and his partner Jim Ragland are now the bayou's caretakers and continue to fight potential interlopers. One way is by bringing school kids out to show them the beauty of the place, which has won Alligator Bayou a bunch of awards from state government and environmental groups. On a cement patio they can make barbecues for 1,200; sadly the roadhouse bar, a longtime favorite haunt of swamp and night lovers from all over Louisiana, is now closed. (Though Governor Bobby Jindal recently had his photo taken there, for Details magazinee.)
Frank edges the boat to a dock on the edge of the swamp. We've moved out from a close, river feel into wide-open swamp stretching as far as the eye can see. Tall, elegant trees rise out of the swamp like crosses. Jumping onto shore, walking as fast as he's talking, Frank leads the way to what he regards the spiritual center of this part of the world, a 300-foot-tall, 800-year-old ancient BALD CYPRESS TREE.
A wooden walkway elevated above the swamp leads to towering knees stretching from its base. Moving a finger to his lips, Frank encourages us to listen not speak, and reaches out to lay his hands on the massive tree. "Sometimes it's like I can feel its pulse," he says.
I try for myself, leaning over and putting my full weight on my hands, against its smooth bark. I hush Frank, who's continued on with his sermon, and during sixty seconds of dead quiet in the heart of the bayou, I swear I can feel the 'thump thump thump' of the big tree's heartbeat rattling my palms. Most likely it's my own pulse reflecting back to the tree. "Either way," says Frank, "it's good to know that you're both out here ... and both alive!"
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