VIDALIA — Crews worked to construct a dam Sunday to section off a sand boil hot spot north of Concordia Parish near Lake Bruin.

Under the direction of the Fifth Louisiana Levee District, inmates erected the dam of sandbags to contain the leaking water and allow it to rise, equalizing the pressure, said Barry Maxwell, a member of the Fifth District Levee Board.

“We want the water to come out, but we don’t want the sand to come,” said Fifth District Levee Board President Reynold Minsky.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Justin Ward said Corps representatives, while patrolling from a helicopter, spotted a sand boil near Lake Bruin spewing discolored water Saturday.

A sand boil results when pressure from the river forces water under the levee, displacing soil and forming a hole. Boils can be addressed by building a ring well of sandbags around them, allowing the water pressure to equalize before the boil is plugged.

Discolored water indicates soil is being displaced.

The sand boil at Lake Bruin is between 15 and 20 cubic yards, Ward said.

“It’s one of the biggest one’s they’ve seen so far,” Ward said.

Minsky said crews usually build a ring of sandbags around sand boils, but since there were numerous issues in the same area at Lake Bruin State Park, the dam was built for efficiency.

Minsky said several agencies are working to keep an eye on sand boils from above and below.

The levee board and Army Corps of Engineers patrols sand boils from the air from helicopters.

The National Guard, Louisiana Department of Fisheries and Wildlife and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development have troops on the ground looking for sand boils.

Maxwell said other than office personnel, the levee board has 14 employees, so inmates are used to help build the rings and dams to treat sand boils at the direction of levee board representatives.

Minsky said while Sunday’s priority was the sand boil issue at Lake Bruin, every day a different area takes priority.

“Today (Lake Bruin) was the highest priority, (Saturday) it was the Henderson Project on the south end of East Carroll (Parish), before that it was north of Lake Providence,” Minsky said.

Minsky said most of the sand boils are in areas over which the levee board and other agencies already know to keep watch.

“We have (sand boils in those areas) every time the river comes up,” Minsky said.

Maxwell, who lives in Concordia Parish, said a large sand boil north of Lake St. John, not far from his own house, was leaking discolored water Sunday and would soon be addressed.

He said north of Lake St. John is prone to sand boils bubbling up when the river is high.

A sand boil in Vidalia at the Vidalia Canal was addressed last week, Maxwell said.

Maxwell said Mississippi River seepage water near Vidalia Lower Elementary School, the Sandbar Restaurant and Young’s Funeral Home in Vidalia was normal and associated with sand boils.

Other than normal patrolling and addressing of sand boils, no new dangers have popped up for the levee board, Maxwell said.

“The river’s dropping, and that’s what we want to see.

The Mississippi River stood at 61.38 feet at 7 p.m. Sunday, a drop of just over 2 inches in 24 hours.