Locks on Ohio, Kanawha Rivers Upgraded in Recent Years

All three locks and dam on the Kanawha River — Winfield, Marmet and London — have been enlarged in the past 25 years.

The State Journal
20 May 2010
By Jim Ross

While navigation structures on the Monongahela River have problems that come with use and age, most such structures on other navigable rivers in West Virginia have had their problems addressed in recent years.

All three locks and dam on the Kanawha River -- Winfield, Marmet and London -- have been enlarged in the past 25 years. The three were built in the 1930s, when boats and barges were smaller. As boats and barges got larger, the locks were too small to pass them through efficiently.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built one new, larger lock each at Winfield and Marmet. At London, it enlarged one of the two old locks.

On the Ohio River, the Corps' Pittsburgh District deals with age- and structure-related problems at the three navigation dams within 35 miles of Pittsburgh -- Emsworth, Dashields and Montgomery.

For the rest of the Ohio River along the West Virginia border, the Corps spent nearly $300 million in the late 1980s and early 1990s to build a canal at the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam near Gallipolis Ferry to eliminate problems there and to rehabilitate the dam. The old locks, which opened in 1937, were small. Also, they were located in a bend in the river, which presented safety problems.

Chuck Minsker, a spokesman for the Corps' Huntington District, said the major construction projects planned for the Ohio River dams in that district all have to do with adding hydroelectric generating plants. The Racine and Belleville locks and dams in the Huntington District already have hydro plants, as does the Hannibal Locks and Dam at New Martinsville, which is in the Pittsburgh District.

Farther down the river, the Corps is dealing with other problems. The locks at Greenup, Ky., about 30 miles below Huntington, and at the Markland Locks and Dam near Cincinnati had serious mechanical failures in the past year, leading to closures and long delays for shippers. Meanwhile, the Corps is planning to upgrade several of its locks on the Ohio River along the Kentucky border, but funding has not been secured.