As Mississippi River water hurtles through the Bonnet Carre Spillway fast enough to fill four Superdomes in less than an hour, it carries the detritus of the Mississippi River Valley and the American heartland along for the ride.
Consequently, anything from upriver that can fit through the spillway's 20-foot-wide bays -- logs, tires, even dead cows -- is heading into Lake Pontchartrain on the muddy torrent. Continuing through the normally dry spillway on its way to the lake, the fast-moving river diversion is picking up even more trees and clumps of vegetation.
All of this debris ends up in the lake, where the bulkier items have been posing a hazard to boaters since the Army Corps of Engineers opened the spillway on April 11 to relieve pressure on the flood-swollen Mississippi.
In addition to environmental impact such as algae blooms and disruption of fish populations, the field of debris being swept into the lake is a lesser-known side effect of the spillway opening. Fishers say they know how to spot a submerged log, but less-experienced mariners could plow right into a hidden obstacle, tearing a hole in the bottom of a boat or ripping off a propeller.
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