Tainter gate update

Okay, let’s get two things straight. One, Mother Nature controls the level of Lake D’Arbonne more than anything else. Two, Mother Nature also seems to control the completion of the Tainter Gate Project on Lake D’Arbonne, which is designed to help man control Mother Nature a little bit better.

The Tainter Gate project was supposed to be completed earlier this year, but now it looks like it will be sometime in September.

Water is high in Bayou D’Arbonne below the spillway, delaying completion of the project.

“We had to put the tainter gate project under work stoppage around the 1st of April because of water from Ouachita River”, said Steve Cagle, President of the D’Arbonne Lake Commission. Water from the river backed up Bayou D’Arbonne and prevented further work. “Right now, the project is about 87 % complete and it looks great, but what we lack is backfilling around the structure and the rebuild of the lake levee. This is to be done with dirt that’s got water on it now behind the structure. On June 13, we are scheduled to restart if river cooperates. that means around the 1st of September sometime for completion.”

Now before you call your Lake Commission or write them a letter, please refer to paragraph one. There’s really nothing they can do about it, but they are diligently trying to get the job completed correctly and within budget and have the gate in place to help with future flood control on the lake. The $6.4 million project to install the tainter gate was started in April, 2011 and was originally expected to take a year and a half before weather and flooding delays. A tainter gate is a type of radial arm floodgate used in dams to control water flow. In periods of high water, it should help drain the lake much faster and help prevent flooding to low-lying homes on the lake.