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Started By
Message
re: Is there a backup for the Old River control structure?
Posted on 2/14/22 at 11:41 am to PhiTiger1764
Posted on 2/14/22 at 11:41 am to PhiTiger1764
quote:
It’s never going to fail. But we will always have these threads because people can just say “we can’t control nature it will happen eventually.”
It won’t.
Fed government builds things to design strength. I am confident that it will hold up to design strength.
But a flood will come one day that is above design strength, and then, all bets are off.
1
Posted on 2/14/22 at 11:53 am to LSUFanHouston
I think overtopping and scouring will one day lead to it’s failure. Not because floods are getting worse but the silting downstream is causing higher water levels for the same flow
Posted on 2/14/22 at 11:55 am to PhiTiger1764
Probably the most important single conclusion reached by this study is that in the long run the Atchafalaya River will become the principal distributary of the Mississippi River and that the current main-stem will become an estuary of the Gulf of Mexico. Just when this will occur cannot be predicted: it could happen next year, during the next decade, or sometime in the next thirty or forty years. But the final outcome is simply a matter of time and it is only prudent to prepare for it.
If The ORC fails....
If The ORC fails....
Posted on 2/14/22 at 12:08 pm to bayoudude
quote:
I think overtopping and scouring will one day lead to it’s failure. Not because floods are getting worse but the silting downstream is causing higher water levels for the same flow
Then that is a lack of maintenance of the river channel... which is 100 percent on the Corps.
Posted on 2/14/22 at 12:13 pm to goofball
It’s going to happen some day. It’s pretty arrogant to think that it won’t. The mouth now is located pretty much the furthest east it has ever been and the channel the longest. The River wants to make the shortest trip to the gulf that it can and that route is straight down the Atcha…
Posted on 2/14/22 at 12:17 pm to LSUFanHouston
The Mississippi built all the land south of roughly I-10. There is no possible way the Corps can prevent this silting forever, especially since natural flooding is no longer tolerated. The river will change course just like it has always done every 500 years or so. It’s actually well past due thanks to the Corps.
Posted on 2/14/22 at 12:23 pm to NOLAVOL16
Yep we could have every suction dredge in the country running 24-7 and still not keep up. That River carries a mind boggling amount of silt. I often wonder how amazing our marshes and coast would look if we had never tamed it and just went with the flow so to speak.
Posted on 2/14/22 at 12:29 pm to bayoudude
quote:
That River carries a mind boggling amount of silt
Yup and the even more amazing part is that it only carries a fraction of what it used to due to all the levees on it and the MO/OH. There is a reason southern Louisiana is sinking into the gulf. The dirt conveyor is dumping everything it has in a narrow bed and off the continental shelf.
Posted on 2/14/22 at 1:02 pm to goofball
quote:
If this thing breaks at any of those three points (or at the lock just downriver from there), what is left to stop the Mississippi River from changing course?
If conditions get bad enough the Army Corps of Engineers have levee designations to blow so the levees further downriver do not get overwhelmed.
This actually happened a few yrs ago. The ACE blew the levee at Hayti,MO on the Miss River where it was mostly farmland.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/army-corps-breaks-missouri-levee-save-cairo-illinois/story?id=13515937
Posted on 2/14/22 at 1:35 pm to BorrisMart
I have been inside the Hydroelectric Station...pretty bad arse!
Posted on 2/14/22 at 1:36 pm to goofball
It is crazy how you can drive over these structures. One well placed detonation and you have a catastrophe greater than anything the US homeland has ever experienced
Posted on 2/14/22 at 1:39 pm to TigerTatorTots
quote:
It is crazy how you can drive over these structures. One well placed detonation and you have a catastrophe greater than anything the US homeland has ever experienced
Have fun on the watchlist!
Posted on 2/14/22 at 1:47 pm to bayoudude
quote:
Yep we could have every suction dredge in the country running 24-7 and still not keep up. That River carries a mind boggling amount of silt.
I get that but if we didn't do it for decades it seems like maybe we could at least slow down the growth of the silt?
Posted on 2/14/22 at 1:55 pm to LSUPHILLY72
quote:
I have been inside the Hydroelectric Station...pretty bad arse!
It was built elsewhere then floated into place. I remember being a teenager and my dad and I watched it go by headed north from St Francisville.
Posted on 2/14/22 at 2:02 pm to Btrtigerfan
quote:
It was built elsewhere then floated into place. I remember being a teenager and my dad and I watched it go by headed north from St Francisville.
That was Shaquille O'Neal's 1st day in Baton Rouge because they had a tornado in Baton Rouge that day. Would have loved to see it floating on the River.
Posted on 2/14/22 at 2:04 pm to goofball
We won't need a new bridge in Baton Rouge over the Mississippi if this happens.
Posted on 2/14/22 at 3:17 pm to The Boat
quote:
When the river is low enough it’s leveed and doesn’t even interact with the spillway structure.
Can you imagine the level of washout involved if the Morganza failed?
It wouldn't be a matter of just rebuilding the structure when the water is low.
Posted on 2/15/22 at 7:51 am to BottomlandBrew
Great link, fascinating reading. 
Posted on 2/15/22 at 8:02 am to The Boat
quote:
get a sensible chuckle out of the people who cut diamonds over the river changing course. They act like the COE would throw their hands up and say oh well and not do anything about it. It would break during a high water level but they’d wait for the water level to go down and rebuild it like they built it the first time. It would be a painful time to live along the Atchafalaya though.
I respect this thought, but if the river busts through no one knows if it'll groove a deeper knotch down the current low sill structure channel, If it does....then repairing the structure at low river conditions may not be feasible
Posted on 2/15/22 at 8:02 am to KingLurker
It will fail eventually. To think otherwise is pretty arrogant. The differential is too great. One really bad flood year and it’s gone.
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