NEW ORLEANS — All bays on the Bonnet Carré Spillway were closed Saturday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Monday.
The corps announcement came in a brief post on Twitter Monday morning. Saturday marked the 79th day that the structure had remained open.
The corps began operating the Bonnet Carré Spillway on May 10 to relieve stress on the levees protecting New Orleans. It was the first time the spillway has been opened twice in one year.
The amount of water passing through the spillway peaked May 21 and 22 at 161,000 cubic feet per second. That's enough water to fill the U.S. Capitol rotunda in about 8 seconds.
In total, crews opened 168 of the structure's 250 bays using cranes to pull up 20 huge timbers called needles in each bay.
The spillway is designed to ensure a maximum of 1.25 million cubic feet per second is passed through the Mississippi River at New Orleans.
The governors of Louisiana and Mississippi say freshwater has replaced brackish water in Lake Pontchartrain and left much of the Mississippi Sound far less salty than usual, killing oysters, hurting fish catches and damaging livelihoods. Both have asked the U.S. Commerce Department to declare a fisheries disaster.
Scientists say freshwater in the sound may have contributed to a high number of dolphin deaths.
Entomologists say the lake's freshwater was also the hatching ground for clouds of mosquito lookalikes that plagued people along the lakefront in New Orleans, Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes.
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