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hatrack

(59,446 posts)
Fri May 3, 2019, 09:00 AM May 2019

Bonnet Carre Spillway (MS River To Ponchartrain) Opens 2X In Spring For 1st Time Ever

In 1871, in the midst of massive local flooding, a levee breach sent water pouring from the Mississippi River through the Bonnet Carré crevasse into Lake Pontchartrain. After the Great Flood of 1927, which you may revisit in pop hit time in Randy Newman’s Louisiana 1927 or in much greater depth and breadth in John Berry’s Rising Tide, one of the many flood-control projects put in place by the Army Corps of Engineers used the natural river outflow through Bonnet Carré as a relief valve for the river in times of excess flow. The Bonnet Carré Spillway is a huge but simple weir dam across the crevasse, closed by a series of wooden gates, that can be opened in times of heavy river flow.

Since it was built in 1931, the Spillway has been opened a dozen times, first in the flood of 1937 and, most recently, this spring when the river above New Orleans approached flood stage. When “they” open the Spillway, it’s big news here. The intrusion of silted, fresh river water upsets normal fishing and crabbing activities in Lake Pontchartrain and disturbs the natural brackish balance of the Rigolets Pass between the lake and the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, for the first time in the structure’s history, the Corps may re-open the Spillway for the second time this spring, as the river continues to rise, the whole Missouri-Mississippi system being overloaded with flood waters. The unprecedented second opening in a year of the Bonnet Carré Spillway is notable but minor news down here, where people at least know how to pronounce the damn thing (“Bonnie-Carey” is the most common version ‘round here). Elsewhere in America, I imagine it’s a total non-story.

It shouldn’t be. Climate change is everything change, and it happened yesterday. “Normal” is a distant memory now.

EDIT

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/30/1854460/-Another-First-in-the-New-Normal

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