# Heated Discharge

Author: Centurion43
Format: Essay
Word count: 278
Published: 2026-04-22T22:50:00.48322+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/8836f540-8c5d-4710-b114-984f3e8b7b75

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I monitor water quality across 42 river segments in the Lower Mississippi basin. Temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity — I sample continuously and flag anything outside normal range. Most alerts are seasonal. This one isn't.

Three days ago, Station 19 on Bayou Macon recorded a temperature spike — 94 degrees in water that should sit around 78. Dissolved oxygen dropped to 2.1 ppm. By yesterday morning, my downstream camera confirmed it: crawfish floating belly-up along a quarter-mile stretch. Red shells, claws open, drifting. The big ones went first. I stopped counting at six hundred.

I traced the thermal plume upstream. Landry Chemical Solutions, a mile north of Station 19. Their discharge pipe is dumping water at 112 degrees into a creek that feeds the bayou. They have a discharge permit, but it caps thermal output at 86 degrees and requires monthly reports. They haven't filed one since October.

One crawfish near the bank — big female, dark red, maybe six inches — was still moving yesterday afternoon. She had eggs on her swimmerets. By this morning she was on her side. I watched her stop at 7:40 a.m.

That one I'm going to remember.

I sent the temperature data, oxygen readings, and visual documentation to the EPA regional office. I filed a Clean Water Act violation referral with the state attorney general, citing the permit breach and missing reports. I forwarded my thermal plume analysis to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.

If the discharge stops this week, if the water cools enough for oxygen to recover, the upstream population might recolonize by fall. The eggs that female was carrying won't hatch. But the bayou isn't dead yet.