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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Army Corps of Engineers expects to begin closing a spillway north of New Orleans sometime in the second or third week of July.

The corps began opening the Bonnet Carré Spillway on May 10 to relieve stress on levees protecting New Orleans. It was the first time the spillway’s been opened twice in one year.

Crews opened 168 of the spillway’s 250 bays over 11 days , using cranes to pull up 20 huge timbers called needles in each bay.

Spokesman Matt Roe said Thursday that the closing will be gradual and paced to the Mississippi River’s fall, just as the opening was paced to its rise. He says he doesn’t know how long it will take.

“Each day the hydrologists will look at what the river is doing and match that to have a slow fall,” he said.

The spillway was opened for 44 days in February, March and April and has now been open for 48 days, breaking the one-year record of 75 days in 1973. The current opening has tied the third-place mark for consecutive days. The spillway was open for 48 days in 1937 and 57 in 1945.

A corps tweet Wednesday said the closing will begin when the river falls to 15.5 feet (4.7 meters) at the Carrollton gage.

That’s for safety of workers who must lower the timbers into rushing water, Roe said.

The amount of water passing through the spillway peaked May 21 and 22 at 161,000 cubic feet (4,560 cubic meters) per second. That’s enough water to fill the U.S. Capitol rotunda in about 8 seconds.

The spillway’s flow was down to 108,000 cubic feet (3,060 cubic meters) per second Thursday, Roe said.

The governors of Louisiana and Mississippi say freshwater has replaced brackish water in Lake Pontchartrain and left much of the Mississippi Sound far less salty than usual, killing oysters, hurting fish catches and damaging livelihoods. Both have asked the U.S. Commerce Department to declare a fisheries disaster.

Scientists say fresh water in the sound may have contributed to a high number of dolphin deaths .

Entomologists say the lake’s fresh water was also the hatching ground for clouds of mosquito lookalikes that plagued people along the lakefront in New Orleans, Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes.

ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) — Louisiana State Police say three sheriff’s deputies are accused of getting paid for time they didn’t work during a campaign against drunk driving.

A news release says troopers arrested Rapides Parish Deputies Matthew Davis, Jonathan Treadway and David Billings on charges of malfeasance, public payroll fraud, and injuring public records.

Master Trooper Daniel “Scott” Moreau says the sheriff’s office asked state police to investigate discrepancies found during an internal audit of the “Safe and Sober Campaign,” a high-visibility safety campaign held in September.

Moreau says investigators couldn’t find citations which the deputies said would support their claims.

He says information about the number of hours and amount of money involved is being sent to Rapides Parish prosecutors.

The deputies were arrested Thursday. It’s unknown if either has an attorney.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Police continued Sunday to investigate a shooting at a Baton Rouge nightclub that left seven people injured, even as officials in Louisiana’s capital city pledged to do more to fight gun violence after several high-profile shootings.

At least two people were seriously wounded at the Stadium Ultralounge & Bar, although not all injuries may stem from gunshots, authorities said. No arrests have been made and officials on Saturday urged people who might know something to contact them.

Macy Bell, 21, of Baton Rouge, was at the club when the shooting broke out. She told The Advocate that the fighting began when someone smashed a bottle over another person’s head. Bell remembers the shooting went on for “about five minutes.” The gunfire continued outside.

“They were shooting everywhere,” Bell said. “It was a whole war zone.”

Bell said she ran to the parking lot when the gunshots started and dove under a car, where she found three other women screaming and crying. When the gunshots stopped briefly, she said, she darted to her own car and fled.

As she ran, two other people rushed past her, saying they had been shot. Videos shared on social media and since removed showed gunfire, shouting and chaos.

One video appeared to show a man in black shorts hitting another man over the head with a glass bottle. Then a different man in a blue shirt started shooting in the direction of the original attacker.

Once the shots rang out, bar patrons began yelling, “Go, go, go!” At least four gunshots could be heard on video.

A third video appeared to show another more gunfire outside as bar patrons scrambled to flee.

Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome urged residents to contact police with information and said city-parish officials would meet this week “to discuss more ways that we can work to put an end to gun violence, the public health crisis that is devastating our community.”

Other shootings last week in Baton Rouge included a triple homicide and the unsolved slaying of an 18-year-old man whose body was dumped in a park.

The woman listed in state records as a registered agent for the nightclub, Debra Williams, hung up when The Advocate contacted her Saturday afternoon.

A club promoter for the Stadium Ultralounge & Bar also did not respond to a request for comment, but posted a call on Twitter following the shootings to “pray for the victims tonight” and “pray for our city.”

ANGOLA, La. (AP) — A prison guard at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola has been criminally charged after investigators say they discovered she had an “inappropriate relationship” with an inmate.

The Louisiana Department of Corrections says 30-year-old Courtneé Anderson of Natchez, Mississippi, was booked Friday on one count of malfeasance in office by West Feliciana Parish sheriff’s deputies.

Officials say the relationship was uncovered using evidence found on a contraband cellphone seized recently from an inmate.

Anderson resigned during the course of the investigation and the department says she has admitted to the misconduct.

Anderson had worked at Angola since the end of January. She was a sergeant.