How To Safely Boat Around Dredge Pipes On Louisiana’s Coast

Dredges are common in Louisiana, especially in and around the Mississippi River. There they are used to remove siltation from shipping lanes in order to keep the channel navigable for boat traffic.

But today we see their use more often thanks to coastal restoration efforts.

All across Louisiana’s coast, these large, floating machines have been used to rebuild land, from Cocodrie to Grand Isle to Venice to Shell Beach to Slidell.

The above is Goose Point in Lake Pontchartrain near the mouth of Bayou Lacombe. The dredge operation there significantly strengthened this major point, protecting the interior marsh, Lake Road and the town of Lacombe.

If you've got Google Earth Desktop booted up and you're feeling froggy, then know that other places you can see successful land creation by the power of dredging include, but are not limited to:

• Shell Beach
• Grand Terre
• West Bay
• Isle Dernieres
• Yankee Pond
• Lafitte
• Venice
• Slidell
• and a whole lot more

You may not hear about it on the news and it may not be the most interesting thing on social media, but a whole lot of land has been rebuilt in Louisiana thanks to one form of dredging or another.

But the form of dredging in question here is hydraulic dredging.

This Coastal Restoration Performed By Hydraulic Dredges Sometimes Poses Navigational Risks To Boaters

Dredging has rebuilt a good bit of Louisiana’s coast, but the whole operation can pose a non-trivial navigational risk, especially to novice boaters who don’t have years of experience fishing across Louisiana’s coast and haven’t negotiated underwater dredge pipes a whole lot.

Well, it’s time to put an end to that! This guide reveals how these dredges work, the risk they pose to boaters, how to safely navigate around them as well as additional navigational resources.

How Do Hydraulic Dredges Work?

Dredges come in a variety of forms, but the one in question here is the kind that looks like a small or medium-sized building floating on a barge.

A suction pipe extends down into the water, where dirt is sucked up through the pump located on the barge, and is delivered through a much longer pipe running to the dirt’s destination on land, where there are usually excavators to spread the resulting spoil.

That Danged Dredge Pipe Is What Gets People

It’s almost always the dredge pipe that is the navigational risk to boaters. This could be because the pipe isn't fully sunk and on the seafloor, or because boaters run over the part they're supposed to avoid.

It doesn't really matter who's fault it is! If an accident happens at all then that's just awful, especially if kids or elderly are in the boat!

All it takes is a weekend joyrider looking at his phone then *bang* his lower unit is now resting on the sea floor. Bummer, dude.

Hopefully the only other thing hurt besides the boat is his pride and (hopefully) has SeaTow on the way to lend a hand.

So what could he have done different to avoid becoming a marine assistance commercial?

Dredge Pipes Are Marked With Buoys

Anywhere you come across a dredge operation you will see a string of buoys marking the dredge pipe, like what you see in the picture below.

Sometimes these are floating the pipe, like what you see above. Other times they may be independent of the pipe. Either way, stay away from these buoys and you’ll avoid the dredge pipe. Easy peezy.

But what if you don’t see any buoys?

Now that you have an idea as to how these dredge operations work, the very first thing you can do is make the safe assumption that the dredge pipe is somewhere between the dredge and land.

Not in the atmosphere, not drilling to the center of the Earth, but in the water somewhere between the dredge and land. It’s not drifting amok and unmarked somewhere else.

After that, look harder, because the buoys are definitely there. In all the dredge operations I’ve seen across Louisiana’s coast, not once were these pipes not marked.

The Easiest Way To Avoid Hitting Dredge Pipes

Slow down and look. There you go. There’s your cheat code.

Here’s a question for you…

What is your hurry? Is someone in your boat bleeding to death? Well, you’ll get to the emergency room a lot faster if your lower unit doesn’t land on a crab in 20ft of water.

So my advice is to slow down, come off plane — well ahead of where the discharge line may be — idle cautiously, stand up and look for it.

If you have sonar, especially side imaging sonar, then look for it there to confirm it’s on the bottom, like what you see in the screenshot below.

But what if there’s buoys marking a safe channel?

If you have to ask then your answer is, "Slow down anyway!" Again: what’s the hurry to rip off your lower unit or worse?

Bad things can happen, and I wouldn’t leave that to chance if there is a single iota of doubt in my mind.

Or Consider This Alternative

Just go around the thing.

By now you have an accurate mental picture of how dredge discharge lines are oriented in the water. If you’re unsure, or if the dredge operation is experiencing some kind of sorcery, you can easily avoid the headache altogether by simply going around the entire thing.

It’s not like you have to paddle your bay boat there, just run an extra minute or two and bask in the assurance that you’re doing the safest thing possible.

How To Know Where Dredges Are Operating On Louisiana's Coast

The Coastal Protection & Restoration Authority is responsible for a good chunk of the dredging you can encounter across Louisiana's wetlands.

They've accomplished a lot, have a lot going on and plan to do a lot more! All of it is detailed inside their 2023 Coastal Master Plan.

More Navigational Resources You Want To Prevent Accidents That Happen To Most Fishermen

While avoiding marked navigational hazards is relatively easy, what’s not easy is avoiding the unmarked ones.

If you can discover safe routes for your boat while avoiding the underwater hazards, then you’re free to fish anywhere on Louisiana’s coast.

This is a critical skill, because some places are riskier than others. For example, how do you know if a white PVC pole is marking a channel or something dangerous?

This and more is what I teach inside the Advanced Inshore Navigation Module of Inshore Fishing 101, and what members of LAFB Elite Community share with each other inside our exclusive forums.

These features are only available to members of LAFB Elite. Interested to learn more? This video details the benefits of joining.