Army Corps of Engineers gives tour of Emsworth Locks and Dams in advance of major rehabilitation project

Army Corps of Engineers officials are inspecting the Emsworth Locks and Dams’ primary lock chamber as part of a major project at the 99-year-old site along the Ohio River.

The 110-foot-wide and 600-foot-long chamber was recently dewatered, meaning about 14 million gallons of water was pumped out into the river in order for crews to take a look at the structure from the riverbed and ensure its usefulness for years to come.

Water removal and the inspection began in early September with the goal of reopening it in mid-November, according to Col. Andrew “Coby” Short, commander of USACE Pittsburgh District.

The chamber walls were reinforced with at least 14 metal struts about 6-foot-tall and at least an inch thick to ensure stability.

“What’s important is for us to communicate with the navigation industry so they knew ahead of time that we were going to have this shutdown,” Short said. “This doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens frequently from time to time on certain locks whether it’s down in the Louisville area, or Huntington, W. Va., or here in Pittsburgh.

“What this is doing is going to provide a reliable network … This project here is going to allow us in the out years to have a reliable chamber here on the land wall for the next decade-plus.”

Short led a tour of the facility for USACE officials and media guests Oct. 14.

Beth Schneller, USACE Pittsburgh District chief of the technical support branch, said planning for the inspection started January 2018 and is projected to cost about $5 million.

“We dewater one chamber, sometimes two a year,” Schneller said. “We have 23 locks and dams with two chambers at a lot of facilities. We may not be back here for 10 years.”

About 20 people work on the Emsworth site, which was first opened in 1921.

The Corps rebuilt and converted the dam to a gated structure between 1935 and 1938. That raised its pool about seven feet to accommodate more modern barges. Its electrical systems, operating machinery and buildings were upgraded in the 1980s, and the gates were upgraded about six years ago.

“The movement of commerce and commodities on these waterways provide jobs in the construction industry, the energy industry as well as the petrochemical industry,” said Kathy Griffin, operations division chief of USACE Pittsburgh District. “The locks and dams on our rivers also provide immense economic input to recreation associated with the use of our waterways. Our focus primarily on operations and maintenance is to assess the condition of our infrastructure, the risk of failure and consequence of failure.”

The Emsworth dam is one of six major river facilities on the Ohio River. It forms a 24-mile pool on the three rivers around Pittsburgh. Emsworth averages about 470 commercial lockages every month, and 350 to 400 recreational lockages during the summer months.

An auxiliary chamber at Emsworth will eventually be replaced by a chamber the size of the one being inspected as part of an estimated $2.1 billion Upper Ohio River Navigation Project at the Emsworth, Dashshields and Montgomery locks and dams.

“It will be huge in the same way that this facility has lasted 100 years,” Short said. “This new chamber will provide no breakdowns, new systems and provide reliability for another century. It’s really vital to the region so that we can remain competitive as an inland navigation port.”

Lenna Hawkins, deputy district engineer for USACE Pittsburgh District, said they are getting close to about 30% of the design of the navigation project, which was authorized by the federal government in 2016.

She said they need to do models of the river, determine how the flow will change with the added chamber as well as many other studies and steps prior to construction. The work is dependent upon funding, which Hawkins said could take many years to accumulate.

USACE Pittsburgh District’s 26,000 square miles include portions of western Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia, eastern Ohio, western Maryland, and southwestern New York. It covers more than 328 miles of navigable waterways, 23 navigation locks and dams, 16 multi-purpose flood-control reservoirs, 42 local flood-protection projects, and other projects to protect and enhance the nation’s water resources infrastructure and environment.

More information about Emsworth Locks and Dams and other Pittsburgh projects is available at lrp.usace.army.mil.