West Atchafalaya Floodway West Atchafalaya Floodway The West Atchafalaya Floodway is a flood control structure of the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project located in the Lower Atchafalaya Basin in south-central Louisiana. It has a project design flood flow capacity of . The Atchafalaya Basin system comprises three floodways. Two of these, the West Atchafalaya Floodway and the Morganza Floodway, are at the northern end. Together with the Atchafalaya River, these floodways are designed to pass flood waters into the third component, the Lower Atchafalaya Basin Floodway, which is in size and is bounded on the north by U.S. Route 190, on the east
Spillway Spillway A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of flows from a dam or levee into a downstream area, typically the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure that the water does not overflow and damage or destroy the dam. Floodgates and fuse plugs may be designed into spillways to regulate water flow and reservoir level. Such a spillway can be used to regulate downstream flows – by releasing water in small amounts before the reservoir is full, operators can prevent sudden large releases