Quote:
Originally Posted by Smalls
But freshwater inflows are still greater when they occur. You have a much larger drainage area for the Sabine and Neches rivers than the Calcasieu.
I admit, I did miss the Neches SWB though.
For whatever reason saltwater has had a greater effect to this point on Big Lake than on Sabine.
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Sabine has a much smaller (narrower) coupling between the lake and channel at the southern end. Most of the salt water coming into the channel flows up and around and actually enters the lake at the northern end because the coupling at the N end is the full channel depth (40 ft) whereas the coupling at the S end is shallow (5 ft). There are many times when Sabine Lake is actually saltier at the N end than the S end.
Big Lake has a wide open coupling between the lake and channel at the S end that is about 15 times longer than the coupling between the channel and S end of Sabine. The salt water coupling from the Gulf to the lake is much stronger on Big Lake. The wide open gap between channel and lake at the S end of Big Lake is the place to stop the salt.