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Tribune Review: Pittsburgh area's aging locks and dams approach 'scary' status
Monday, January 30, 2012
 By Chris Togneri, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, January 29, 2012
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." MORE
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