Photo By Janet Meredith | The QUAD Cities Floating Plant Heavy Lift Team lowers the second leaf into its...... read more read more
From rigorously welding colossal sized gates to placing dozens of 110-foot bulkheads to hold back the flowing Mississippi River, the 100 plus person team overseeing the consolidated lock closures throughout the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District proudly wrap up the projects including one that has spanned over seven years in the making.
The district’s product delivery team consisting of the Engineering and Construction, Project Management, Contracting and Operations Division working alongside the Rock Island Structures Maintenance Heavy Fleet with the Heavy Lift QUAD CITIES Floating Plant and contractors completed several milestones across the district efficiently and safely.
Just as the 2025 navigation season opens back up, a consolidated lock closure allowed for:
• the addition of downstream lifting lugs at Lock and Dam 24 in Clarksville, Mo., for gate removal and maintenance.
• modifications to Lock and Dam 25, near Winfield, Missouri for the upcoming addition of a new 1200-foot lock chamber.
• modernizing and completing the third phase of the lift gate replacement project at Melvin Price Locks and Dam in Alton, Illinois.
• repairing embedded metal used as rub rail inside the lock chamber at Locks 27, near Granite City, Illinois.
Consolidated lock closures allow for routine maintenance and repairs, as well as crucial upgrades that are scheduled to overlap with one another to minimize impact to river navigation and public recreation.
“Winter maintenance projects are critical to ensuring the sustainability of the navigation system on the Upper Mississippi River,” said Star Loftus, project manager. She added, “In the St. Louis District, Corps staff have focused their efforts on completing these projects making for a very busy winter, but this is the best time to do maintenance since it has the least effects on the industry”.
Lock and Dam 24 in Clarksville, Mo., was closed for a seven-day period for the installation of downstream miter gate lifting lugs while the Rock Island Structures Maintenance Medium Fleet and St. Louis District labor crews worked at Lock and Dam 25 to install a downstream bulkhead recess sill beam and dewater the 600-foot lock chamber to allow for concrete placement around the structure. Additionally, crews worked to place new concrete on the lock guide wall. This operational milestone advances the team closer to facilitating the new 1200-foot lock chamber. Currently, Lock and Dams 24 and 25, constructed in the 1930’s, have only a 600-foot lock chamber.
Modernizing and completing the lift gate replacement at Melvin Price Locks and Dam concludes the third phase in a multi-year maintenance project to improve operational efficiency and ensure state-of-the-art navigation control works on the Upper Mississippi River. Original to the 1994 design and built to ensure the pool elevation could be maintained while the razed Locks and Dam 26 was still in operation, the three leaf lift gate had numerous reliability issues causing closures and constant maintenance. However, when engineers found that a permanent global twist in the three-leaf lift gate was unrepairable along with extensive fatigue cracking and would result in a catastrophic failure, the gate replacement was elevated to the number one priority in the Mississippi Valley Division for repair.
A supply contract for phase one allowed for the approximate 31-month fabrication of the lift gate. Since the upstream leaf weighed approximately 450,000 pounds and the downstream leaf weighed approximately 490,000 pounds, the gates were shipped by river from Alabama to Alton, Illinois. Phase two consisted of alterations to the pier faces to reconstruct the cantilevered control rooms to allow for future installation. Phase three, completed this winter, was the largest and most complicated phase of the project since it included installing bulkheads, dewatering, removing the old gate system, removing and replacing machinery components and lifting cables, placing 1,000 cubic yards of concrete to raise the gate sill and gate rests, painting, setting up a temporary power facility, reconnecting computer systems with the new machinery, shipping and reinstalling two completely modernized gates and rewatering the lock. Structural, electrical, hydraulic, mechanical, technical and fabrication subject matter experts were onsite daily to review the work, troubleshoot issues and maintain the schedule resulting in the success of the consolidated lock closure.
Year by year, by working with industry partners, the Mississippi Valley Division improves rehabilitation processes and sharing of assets to modernize projects such as this one. From the beginning, this project was challenged by the immense nature of the task. Just to manage dewatering at all the locations, the team secured bulkheads across the division, dealt with winter weather affects and the intricacies of integrating new electronic systems with old components; however, through close schedule coordination, communication, data management, continuity, and construction oversight, the team persevered to finish.
Last, but not least, the 1200-foot lock chamber at Locks and Dam 27 near Granite City, Illinois, was dewatered and crews removed embedded metal from the lock chamber walls. Locks and Dam 27 moves more cargo than any other navigation structure on the Mississippi River. The St. Louis District oversees five locks and dam sites on the Mississippi and Kaskaskia Rivers and serves as a unit of the Inland Waterway Navigation System. Keeping this system open is vital to the nation’s economy.
“By leveraging coordinated closures to complete necessary major lock maintenance and rehab, the district is able to modernize and rehabilitate key infrastructure supporting the navigation mission and with spring just around the corner, coal, fertilizer and road salt will begin shipping upriver, so it’s critical that each team worked together to meet the tight deadline,” said Andy Schimpf, rivers project manager.
In the Midwest, 60% of grain is shipped on the Mississippi River, making the locks and dams critical infrastructure for the nation’s economy. During the 2024 season, Corps staff supported nearly 4,800 lockages and the movement of more than 45 million tons of cargo through the Melvin Price Locks and Dam structure. Overall, the operation of the last four locks and dams on the Mississippi River, which, in conjunction with 25 other such structures on the river to the head of navigation in Minnesota, facilitate critical navigation on the nation’s largest and most significant river. Allowing the Inland Waterway System to connect not only the region and major markets in Canada and Mexico, but also ocean ports where goods are shipped around the world.
| Date Taken: | 04.15.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.15.2025 11:13 |
| Story ID: | 495339 |
| Location: | ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, US |
| Web Views: | 249 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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