LEONARD GRAY

It’s 32.8 miles above New Orleans, 5.7 miles in length and designed to move a quarter-million cubic feet of water per second. It’s the Bonnet Carre Spillway, and it’s Greg Malon’s beat. He’s the park ranger. Malon has been with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for 21 years, working as a park ranger everywhere from Fern Ridge Lake, near Eugene, Ore., to New Hampshire. He came here in August 1999 to help move forward the resource management operation in the spillway, which began in 1998, and it’s been an enjoyable job so far. “My job is public relations and public education,” Malon said. He’s not a law enforcement officer and doesn’t carry a firearm, but he does have muscle behind him. Malon has immediate radio contact with the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Louisiana State Police. Even so, when someone doesn’t wear a helmet when riding an all-terrain vehicle, when someone is hunting illegally, when someone is camping without a permit, look for Malon. “Most people realize when they’re doing what they shouldn’t be doing,” he said. Malon sees the massive Bonnet Carre Spillway as almost unique, offering a huge variety of recreational opportunities as well as serving its primary function, flood control. Recreation in the spillway includes hunting and fishing, riding of ATVs, bicycles, trucks, go-carts and dirt bikes; camping, dog training, flying radio-controlled model airplanes and horseback riding. There’s also bird-watching and even a butterfly habitat management area. Rifles and handguns are not allowed to be fired in the spillway, and target-shooting is not permitted. However, organized recreational activity abounds, usually linked with an group such as the South Louisiana Trailblazers, the Pontchartrain Hunting Retriever Club, the Spillway Radio Control Club and the Ouachita Retriever Club. Each year, the Great Spillway Classic Trail Run is held, and the Land Rovers of New Orleans plans an annual ride. Possible activities in the future include skeet-shooting, a golf driving range and a firing range, though these activities are now illegal. The difficulty was organizing the spillway’s extensive acreage into zones, where certain activities are permitted in each zone, for the public’s safety and comfort. Therefore, as examples, ATV riders are separated from campers, and hunters are far from fishermen. “People don’t realize that what they do impacts other people,” Malon said. One of the biggest questions he gets is why the corps mandates helmet use for bikers and ATV riders when the state has a no-helmet law. He said this is federal land, and since this is off-road and not on highways, the responsibility for safety increases. He’s dealt with six injury accidents, all of which took place at low speeds. Malon urges the “Rule of Three” when riding – one person injured needs one person to stay with him and one person to go for help. Also, Malon is hard at work on what he considers his greatest challenge – keeping illegal dumping of trash out of the spillway. “Unfortunately, it’s very difficult,” he said. To this end, he’s getting help. A second ranger, Keith Chasteen, started work two weeks ago, and he will concentrate on wildlife and habitat management. A third ranger is being hired as well. “Some think it’s a wasteland,” Malon said. “Not at all. It’s a unique area.” And as for his own job, helping to make the spillway as family-friendly as possible, “People are glad to see me out here.” The Bonnet Carre Spillway is open from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., except for permitted campers.