Corps Urges Major Work on Locks and Dams in Pittsburgh

Washington PA Observer Reporter
6 May 2010

PITTSBURGH - Federal officials are again urging major work on the locks and dams on Pittsburgh's three rivers.

The Army Corps of Engineers hosted a tour Friday of the Emsworth locks to highlight preliminary study recommendations calling for complete replacement of the chronically failing locks that channel boats around three dams on the Ohio River northwest of Pittsburgh.

Millions of tons of coal, chemicals, metals and other cargo are shipped annually on the water highway of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers. The locks are essentially water-driven elevators that lift and lower boats so they can pass through dams, which control water levels on the river enabling navigation.

With Emsworth partly out of service for repairs, it was taking towboats 15 or 16 hours to get their coal barges through, a process that normally takes about two hours. Dave Sneberger, corps chief of locks and dams, said a typical tow costs $500 per hour to operate.

"If you're sitting there 10 hours, $5,000 just went down the tubes," he said. And such costs trickle down to consumers.

The Emsworth Locks and Dams were completed in 1922, and the next two facilities downstream are not much younger.

"Analysis, modeling and inspections have shown the projects to be extremely unreliable with high probabilities of failures that could result in unscheduled closures of up to a year," the corps said in a statement.

An Upper Ohio Navigation Study is to be completed in November 2011, but financing and construction of new facilities could take another 20 years or more. And the cost is estimated at $2 billion, with another $1 billion to fix similar problems on the Monongahela River's locks and dams.

With the main 600-foot-long and 110-foot-wide lock chamber at Emsworth drained, it was possible Friday to descend to the dried-out river floor, where crews were working to repair the archaic valve system that allows the lock operator to drain water from the chamber.

Large cracks, gaps and pockmarks were visible on the concrete walls, and officials said they fear a collapse. The auxiliary chamber is only 360 feet by 56 feet, resulting in Friday's single-file barge movement and traffic jam.

And if a problem develops there before the main lock is returned to service May 28, river traffic would halt. That would mean coal - 75 percent of the tonnage passing through Emsworth - not getting to power plants, construction material like stone and cement not making it sites and barges carrying gasoline unable to reach tank farms, Sneberger said.

Sneberger said rivers are not the fastest way to transport goods, just the cheapest, with rail shipping eight times more expensive and truck transport 50 times as much.

"Rail right now is just about maxed out," he said. "And would you want another 500 trucks running up and down the road here? Really, there's no alternative. ... And it's the greenest technology we have."