On top of Steele Bayou while opening the gates

Thomas and Gene with RBS entered the control structure at Steele Bayou at 6:34 p.m. on Monday April 20, and began the hour-and-a-half-long procedure of opening the four gates. Opening the gates begins the long process of draining flood waters from the South Delta.

Atop the structure, Gene and Thomas begin the hour-and-a-half-long process of opening the gates. (Photo by David Day)

After knocking a wasp off the locked doors, the two men entered the main hydraulic control room and started the equipment that would lift the gates. An arduous climb up two flights of stairs to the top of the structure allowed for a beautiful view of the South Delta flood.

Once on top of the structure, they sounded the horn to inform anyone in the water near the structure to get out of the way. The half dozen sportsmen fishing from the structure looked up towards the top of the structure but barely blinked. There was no real rush to move since it takes about 20 minutes for a single gate to lift.

While Gene was sounding the horn, Thomas was opening the box with the controls for the first gate. The box was little more than an open-close switch, a light and electric controls that looked to be from the 1960s.

Thomas observes the pulleys and cables as they slowly move, creaking and shuttering along the way. The marker shows the gate at 19 feet on its way to fully open at 23 feet. (Photo by David Day)

Once the controls for the first gate were turned to “open,” the humming of equipment and the rattle of the steel gates began. The wheels and cables atop the structure seemed to show no progress or results, but the gates were opening at a snail’s pace. It took about 20 minutes for the first gate to hit the open mark, about 23 feet. The swirling water on the flooded side of the gate was a sure sign water was moving on through. Even more stark was the differently colored water on the other side of the gate flowing from the bayou into the channel that leads to the Yazoo River.

The river side of the structure has been a favorite fishing spot for generations of sportsmen. The third generation was at the gates fishing this Monday evening.

A solitary fisherman in this photo was one of a half dozen or so on the structure Monday evening as the gates were opened. The discolored water in front of him is the first of the flood waters to hit the channel to the Yazoo River just downstream. (Photo by David Day)

The gates were constructed in the late 1960s as part of a massive governmental engineering project to control flooding in the Mississippi Delta. That project, the Mississippi Rivers and Tributaries Project, was begun some 30 years prior to that as a response to the Great Flood of 1927. The plan was to build levees, channels and control structures throughout the Delta to force flood waters from the Mississippi to the gates at Steele Bayou. Once the waters start to accumulate at Steele Bayou, large pumps would force the water from the holding area into the Yazoo River.

The view from the stairs just below the upper level on the Steele Bayou control structure. (Photo by David Day)

The pumps were never built as planned, and the result has been regular flooding as designed because there are no pumps to remove the water. Those man-made floods have devastated the lives of generations of people who call the South Delta home.

2020 has been similar to 2019’s flood path. The river has crested and fallen a couple of times and that has left the gates closed for a large part of the year. Several heavy rainfalls, including near record rainfall the first two weeks of January, have filled up the South Delta to about 85% of last year’s levels.

The channel full of flood waters as designed. Without the pumps that were a part of the design plan, this area floods on a regular basis. With the pumps, flooding will be regulated to wetland areas and designated flood zones. (Photo by David Day)

When the Mississippi River is rising, the Yazoo River also rises. That rise could force water to back up into the Delta if the Steele Bayou gates are not closed. But heavy rainfall also causes the South Delta to flood when the gates are closed and the floodwater has nowhere to go.

When the river is falling and drops below the level of the backwater, the gates can be opened to allow water to drain from the South Delta.