07/13/2026
ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER DRAWDOWN… BUT IS IT ACTUALLY WORKING?
They opened the floodgates on Iatt Lake today. The plan is the exact same thing they do almost every year now—drain the water, expose the mud, and try to "slow down" the giant salvinia growth through the summer heat.
But a lot of us who live out here, fish this water, and pay taxes in this parish will be looking at the mud flats and asking the same thing: Is this really the best we can do for our lake, or are we just stuck in a broken cycle that leaves everyone high and dry?
Crushing the Fishing
Iatt is supposed to be a premier freshwater bass and bream fishery, but these constant drawdowns are doing real, long-term damage:
Ruining the Habitat: Dropping the water right in the middle of crucial seasons pulls water away from the shallow spots where fish actually spawn, feed, and hide.
Why Draining It Isn’t A Cure
The frustrating part is that draining the lake doesn't even kill the salvinia—it just masks the problem for a minute.
If we get a rainy or cloudy summer, those exposed mats don’t even dry out; they just sit in the mud and survive.
Salvinia doubles its weight in just a few days. A handful of plants surviving will completely re-infest the entire lake the exact second the water comes back up.
The Money and the Bureaucracy Catch
Why are we relying on a primitive fix like draining the lake? Because pulling the plug costs the state absolutely nothing.
The Budget Gap: There is no dedicated, locked-in budget specifically to save Iatt Lake from salvinia. LDWF has to pull from a shared statewide Aquatic Plant Control Fund. Because that money is stretched thin across the whole state, our lake gets put on the back burner.
Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen: Local parish control was handed over to the state decades ago. Now, LDWF handles the biology and w**ds, but DOTD actually owns and operates the floodgates. When management is split between different state departments, the local property owners are the ones who get stuck in the middle.
Better Options Exist
Other states and neighboring lakes dealing with giant salvinia are moving away from massive, disruptive drawdowns by using smarter, year-round tactics because their states actually fund them:
Winter Maintenance Spraying: Places like Texas actively spray infested waters during the dead of winter. Hitting the w**d while it's already weak from the frost knocks it down before it has a chance to explode in the spring.
Dedicated Weevil Nurseries: Successful management programs use dedicated greenhouses to mass-breed millions of Salvinia Weevils, releasing massive "booster shots" into the water the second spring hits so the bugs do the work, not a dry lakebed.
Questions We Need to Start Asking:
If annual drawdowns are the answer, why are we having to completely drain our lake year after year just to keep up with the exact same problem?
How much local revenue are Grant Parish businesses supposed to lose every single time the boat ramps are turned into mud flats?
Are we actually protecting this lake, or are we just punishing the lakeside property owners who have to watch their docks rot and their property values tank while state departments pass the buck?
We love this lake, and the people here deserve better than a repeating cycle that leaves us looking at apocalyptic wasteland. It’s time to start pushing our wildlife officials for a modern management plan that keeps the water where it belongs.
Drop your thoughts below. Share this post, tag your neighbors, and let’s get people talking about this before the whole lake is gone again.
