Pittsburgh Area's Aging Locks and Dams Approach 'Scary' Status
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
29 January 2012
By Chris Togneri
When three barges broke loose 10 days ago on the Monongahela
River, bouncing off bridges, forcing road closures and slowing the
morning commute, the accident resulted in yet-another unscheduled
waterway closure in the Army Corps of Engineers' Pittsburgh
District.
While most closures are not nearly as spectacular, they are
common, according to local and national waterway officials. They
promise to get worse.
Western Pennsylvania's 23 locks are old and, in some cases,
crumbling, officials said. The Dashields lock and dam on the Ohio
River has unstable chamber walls that move when vessels pass. At
Lock and Dam No. 2 on the Allegheny, large chunks of concrete have
fallen off chamber walls, risking vessels and crew. At the
76-year-old Montgomery Lock and Dam on the Ohio, the gates are so
old and weak that two gave out in 2005 after loose barges crashed
into them, although they are designed to sustain such a hit.
Combine that with continued cuts to federal funding for
maintenance and operations, and the region's waterways are not
only unreliable for industry, but approaching a "scary" status,
officials said.
"We already have double the national average of unscheduled
outages, and with cuts to federal funding, we're going to
quadruple the national average this year," said Jim McCarville,
executive director of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission. "When you
think about it, it's really quite scary."
In a nation full of aging waterway infrastructure, Pittsburgh's is
the oldest. Designed to last 50 years, about half of locks in the
United States are 50 years or older, according to statistics from
the Army Corps. In Western Pennsylvania, 66 percent are 50 years
or older. The Emsworth locks on the Ohio River are 91 years old,
and of the eight locks and dams on the Allegheny, the youngest, in
Rimer, is 74 years old.
"They are aging and fatigued," said Jim Fisher, chief of
operations for the corps' Pittsburgh District. "The only good news
is that we know there are major problems."
Rimer and another Allegheny lock, at Templeton, have been shut
down because there is no money for upkeep. Commercial vessels must
call 24 hours in advance to pass.
Federal funding for maintenance and operations in the district is
expected to drop for a second straight year, from $101 million in
fiscal year 2010 and $83.3 million in 2011 to $71.4 million in
2012, according to the corps. The 2012 number is a projection;
officials expect to get the final number in days, said Dan Jones,
an Army Corps spokesman.
"We're doing no more major preventative maintenance," Fisher said.
The corps oversees nine locks on the Monongahela River, eight on
the Allegheny River and six on the Ohio River. Its repair fleet --
which responds to vessel and lock emergencies and maintains the
locks and dams -- has slashed hours of operation from 24 hours to
16 hours a day, Fisher said.
In the Jan. 19 accident, two coal barges headed for U.S. Steel's
Clairton Works got loose near the Liberty Bridge. One floated to
the Ohio and sank; the other struck a moored barge filled with
sand at Frank Bryan Inc., a South Side construction materials
supply business. It ripped that barge loose, then pinned it
against a Smithfield Street Bridge pier. The Coast Guard is
investigating the cause.
U.S. Steel depends on the Monongahela Ohio River system for
transporting raw materials and finished steel to and from its
Clairton, Irvin, and Edgar Thomson plants in the Mon Valley, said
company spokeswoman Erin DiPietro.
"Without an efficient water transportation system, these plants
would be significantly less competitive in today's steel market,"
she said.
Coal shipped to Clairton is used to make coke, she said. The coke
is shipped to U.S. Steel blast furnaces in Braddock; Gary, Ind.;
Detroit; Fairfield, Ala.; and Granite City, Ill.
Last year, there were 475 unscheduled closures of locks on Western
Pennsylvania rivers, mostly from equipment failures, but also the
result of rarer issues, such as loose barges and flooding,
officials said. Unscheduled closings blocked river traffic for
almost 9,500 hours combined, federal statistics show.
"We no longer have a reliable system. It's as simple as that,"
Fisher said.
The Coast Guard closed the Monongahela for two days while crews
salvaged the loose barges. Traffic on the Ohio and Allegheny was
not affected.
Debra Colbert, spokeswoman for the Alexandria, Va.-based advocacy
group Waterways Council Inc., said Pittsburgh must improve its
waterway system or risk losing industry.
"We're at a critical juncture. We cannot take a Band-Aid
approach," Colbert said.
Waterways Council is lobbying Congress to back a bill sponsored by
U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., that would funnel more money into
maintaining and rebuilding inland waterway infrastructure.
"Without waterways, everybody is going to have to pay a lot more
for consumer goods," she said.
Chris Togneri can be reached at ctogneri@tribweb.com or
412-380-5632.