Old River Control Structure

The Old River Control Structure complex. View is to the east-southeast, looking downriver on the Mississippi, with the three dams across channels leading to the Atchafalaya River to the right of the Mississippi. Concordia Parish, Louisiana is in the foreground, on the right, and Wilkinson County, Mississippi, is in the background, across the Mississippi on the left.
Old River low-sill control structure discharging water into the Atchafalaya, May 2011

The Old River Control Structure is a floodgate system in a branch of the Mississippi River in central Louisiana. It regulates the flow of water from the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya River, thereby preventing the Mississippi River from changing course. Completed in 1963, the complex was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a side channel of the Mississippi known as "Old River", between the Mississippi's current channel and the Atchafalaya Basin, a former channel of the Mississippi.[1][2][3][4][5]

The Old River Control Structure is a complex containing the original low-sill[6] and overbank[7] structures, as well as the auxiliary structure that was constructed after the low-sill structure was damaged during the Mississippi River Flood of 1973. The complex also contains a navigation lock and the Sidney A. Murray Jr. Hydroelectric Station.[8]

  1. ^ McPhee, John (February 23, 1987). "The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 12, 2011. Republished in McPhee, John (1989). The Control of Nature. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-12890-6.
  2. ^ Angert, Joe and Isaac. "Old River Control". The Mighty Mississippi River. Archived from the original on May 15, 2009. Retrieved 2011-05-12.. Includes map and pictures.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference AmericasWetlands was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference InteractiveMap was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Kemp, Katherine (January 6, 2000). "The Mississippi Levee System and the Old River Control Structure".
  6. ^ "Low Sill Structure".
  7. ^ "Old River Control Structure, Point Breeze, LA". www.johnweeks.com.
  8. ^ Piazza, Bryan P. (2014). The Atchafalaya River Basin: History and Ecology of an American Wetland. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-1-62349-039-3.