Grassy Lake is , a

natural lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

, and is located in St. Martin and

Assumption Assumption, in Christianity, refers to the Assumption of Mary, a belief in the taking up of the Virgin Mary into heaven. Assumption may also refer to: Places * Assumption, Alberta, Canada * Assumption, Illinois, United States ** Assumption Town ...

Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

es,

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. The of watershed includes

Lake Verret Lake Verret is natural lake located in Assumption, Parish, Louisiana, US. The lake is west of Napoleonville, Louisiana, south of Pierre Part, part of the Atchafalaya River Basin of the Lower Mississippi River Region, with of watershed that inc ...

, Lake Palourde, all draining into the

Atchafalaya River The Atchafalaya River ( french: La Rivière Atchafalaya, es, Río Atchafalaya) is a distributary of the Mississippi River and Red River in south central Louisiana in the United States. It flows south, just west of the Mississippi River, and ...

, and finally the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

. Grassy Lake is almost entirely in St. Martin Parish but Assumption Parish runs along the east side, just west of the

shoreline A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past a ...

History

At the turn of the century, late eighteenth to early twentieth, transportation to market of the crops, especially sugar cane, of the big plantation owners was a challenge. When water levels were high boats could travel on the bayous, lakes, canals, and rivers. Movement on some waterways would require assistance from teams of oxen. Levees would have a cordelle road built so the teams could pull the boats. One way of transporting goods was by the approximately ten miles Attakapas Canal connecting

Bayou Lafourche Bayou Lafourche ( ), originally called Chetimachas River or La Fourche des Chetimaches, (the fork of the Chitimacha), is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 20, 2011 b ...

Napoleonville Napoleonville is a village and the parish seat of Assumption Parish, in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The population was 660 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Pierre Part Micropolitan Statistical Area. The village is best known as the loca ...

. Access to the Atchafalya could then be from Lake Verret, Fourmile Bayou, Grassy Lake, through Simon or Persimmon passes, and Lake Palourde.

Operation Dry Water

A program started in 2009 between the

Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) is a state agency of Louisiana that maintains state wildlife and fishery areas. The agency is headquartered in the capital city of Baton Rouge. Mission The Louisiana Department of Wildlife a ...

(LDWF), National Association of State Boating Law Administrators (NASBLA), and the

U.S. Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...

, as part of a national campaign, resulted in

DUI Driving under the influence (DUI)—also called driving while impaired, impaired driving, driving while intoxicated (DWI), drunk driving, operating while intoxicated (OWI), operating under the influence (OUI), operating vehicle under the infl ...

boating charges (also called BWI) in 2017 on five Louisiana waterways including Grassy Lake.

Vegetation

The LDWF conducted a survey for the presence of aquatic vegetation on October 11, 2005, and again on September 21, 2006. The water was considered fairly clear with no submerged aquatic vegetation. Occurrence of invasive species common salvinia, common water hyacinth,

water lettuce ''Pistia'' is a genus of aquatic plants in the arum family, Araceae. It is the sole genus in the tribe ''Pistieae'' which reflects its systematic isolation within the family. The single species it comprises, ''Pistia stratiotes'', is often cal ...

alligator weed ''Alternanthera philoxeroides'', commonly referred to as alligator weed, is a native species to the temperate regions of South America, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Argentina alone hosts around 27 species that fall with ...

, water-primrose, Duck Potato (arrowhead), as well as cutgrass that has benefits but can become a nuisance.LDWF: Office of Fisheries and Inland Fisheries section; Aquatic Vegetation Type Maps and Narratives
Retrieved 2017-11-25

References

{{authority control Lakes of Louisiana Bodies of water of St. Martin Parish, Louisiana Wetlands and bayous of Louisiana Atchafalaya River