“Hooray,” said Carlton Dufrechou when asked about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closing the Bonnet Carre Spillway.

Dufrechou, executive director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, had trouble containing his enthusiasm after the decision was made Wednesday by the Corps to begin the tedious task of closing each of the 160 bays open. The Corps anticipates the closure of all the bays later this month.

The spillway was opened for the first time in 11 years on April 11, diverting nearly 119,000 cubic feet of water per second from the bloated Mississippi River into the lake to relieve some of the extreme pressure forced upon the 900 miles of levees protecting New Orleans, a safe move for the people living downstream but not so much for the ecosystem of the lake. The last time similar circumstances called for the spillway to open in 1997, a disastrous plume of algae, caused by the excessive amounts of fertilizer in the river water, exploded across the lake and covered nearly two-thirds of it. The alga blooms depleted the waters of oxygen, drowning most everything in its wake.

Before the spillway was opened this year, the lake already had increased amounts of the fertilizers nitrogen and phosphorous, which has Dufrechou concerned with the possibility of more alga blooms. But, he said, the spillway was not opened as wide nor as long as in 1997, so he doesn’t expect the algae to be nearly as extensive this year.

But with algae already growing in the lake and river waters, the possibility still exists.

“The razor’s edge will be in mid June when water temps start rising,” Dufrechou said. “Algae is a plant so all it needs is fertilizers and sunlight.”

He said the algae could begin to grow rapidly if the lake became calm for an extended period. To inhibit this, he’s hoping for frequent frontal systems and a wet summer that would serve to purge the lake of the river water.

Dufrechou also pointed out several other problems the river water may instigate, including a drop in shellfish production, but currently the major of these concerns is a pod of dolphins roaming the lake that latest sightings put in the vicinity of Eden Isles.

He said sightings have been coming in of the dolphins bouncing around the lake, which he said is not uncommon. But he fears the lack of salinity in the river water has them scurrying about looking for more suitable waters.

The coast of St. Tammany is the last location left untouched by the river’s contents, but soon Dufrechou fears this too will change and the dolphins would be forced to chance the foreboding east end of the lake, where the new Twin Span construction creates an underwater maelstrom of boisterous reverberations.

“I think if the salinity drops passed the point where it’s unhealthy for them, I would think Mother Nature would take care of them,” he said.

Salinity is currently dropping across the lake with the latest readings at the Tchefuncte River being 2.1 parts per thousand of water, Bayou Castine at 3.5ppt, and Fontainebleau Beach at 4.3ppt with 0 being fresh water.

Other reports have also surfaced where fishermen are finding drifting debris scattered throughout the lake.

Dufrechou said the lake has a long way to go before it completely recovers from the spillway opening, but the sooner they close it, the better.