Weirs Closed

[MathGeek]

Originally Posted by Capt.B

Mosquito lake and Blind lake area

I have not studied the detailed hydrology, but I'd think this area would be more impacted by the salinity of the ICWW (a few hundred yards) than by the weirs (5-6 miles away). If you open the weirs enough that any significant salt is making it back to Mosquito lake and Blind lake, you'd be exposing the marsh closer the weirs to much higher salt levels.

Salinity in the ICWW is controlled with the Calcasieu Lock and needs to be kept low in that area so as not to dump too much salt into the upper Mermentau system.

If you want more flow at that point, you just gotta pray for rain. If you want more salt, you'd better think about increasing the connection to the ICWW. But the USACE might not like that, because they work pretty hard to keep the salinity up there below 5 ppt (waaaaaay below). The USACE has a number of salinity monitoring sides along the ICWW. There are three south of the ICWW and many more just N of the ICWW. The two closes to your points of interest are labeled Sweet Lake and Willow Lake on the linked map. You can peruse the interactive map and see the salinity readings.

http://www2.mvn.usace.army.mil/ops/sms/Calc.asp