Thread: Red river

Thats a lot of water...its gotta go somewhere...

The water flow from the Red River has little effect on the flow in the Atchafalaya River. By federal law, the flow in the Atchafalaya is maintained to 30% of the flow in the Mississippi above the Old River control structure. When the flow in the Red increases the Old River control structure reduces the flow from the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya to keep the Atchafalaya's flow at 30% of the Mississippi's flow.

Originally Posted by cajun

The water flow from the Red River has little effect on the flow in the Atchafalaya River. By federal law the flow in the Atchafalaya is maintained to 30% of the flow in the Mississippi above the Old River control structure. When the flow in the Red increases the Old River control structure reduces the flow from the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya to keep the Atchafalaya,s flow at 30% of the Mississippi's flow.

Fishervet, I would be happy to discuss this with you, at any time, to clarify questions you may have.

Just lookin at the map...the Red basically is the Atchafalaya once it meets up down there past Alexandrea.. All the water thats up here now, flowing toward yall, wheres it go?

The Corps throttles back the flow from the Mississippi to the Atchafalaya equal to the flow in the Red River. Effectively diverting that amount of water into the Mississippi. Before the control structure was built the Red flowed into the Mississippi, but in order to build the structure they had to divert the Red to the Atchafalaya. So this is how they compensate for this. The Atchafalaya will not rise due to the rise in the Red! The Mississippi, however, will rise due to the floodwater coming down the Red. It won't have much of a effect on the Mississippi since it's flow is about 20X more than the Red.

Ah I see. Thanks for the explanation.

Thanks. I have been looking at all the river stages and was wondering where it went.