Walla Walla District To Conduct Inspections, Locks To Close
The Walla Walla Engineer District will conduct routine annual inspections, preventative maintenance and repairs at all navigation locks on the Columbia and Snake rivers during March.
Walla Walla District dams with navigation locks include: McNary Dam, located near Umatilla, Ore., at Columbia Mile 292; Ice Harbor; near Burbank, Wash., at Snake Mile 10; Lower Monumental, near Kahlotus, Wash., at Snake Mile 41; Little Goose, near Starbuck, Wash., at Snake Mile 70 and Lower Granite Dam, near Pomeroy, Wash., at Snake Mile 107. Portland District’s Bonneville, The Dalles, and John Day navigation locks are located at Columbia River Miles 145, 191 and 216, respectively.
All locks in the inland navigation system will close to recreational and commercial river traffic on March 2, at 6 a.m.
Ice Harbor, McNary, John Day, The Dalles and Bonneville locks are scheduled to reopen at 11:59 p.m. on March 17. Lower Monumental, Lower Granite, and Little Goose locks are scheduled to return to service at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, March 24.
The additional days at these dams are necessary to perform non-routine work that will require more time to complete than the typical two-week-long routine maintenance outage.
The non-routine work includes, but is not limited to, gate structural repairs, navigation lock concrete repair and equipment/machinery repair/replacement.
Ice Harbor remains temporarily closed while maintenance staff and engineers address mechanical alignment issues occurring in the downstream gate hoist machinery. The lock was placed out of service on February 23. During operational testing February 25, dam staff performed a downstream lockage for Tidewater’s mv. Crown Point and four grain barges.
Maintenance crews are also repairing damaged grease lines and removing ice build-up on the gate which may be contributing to motor-overload conditions.
The Corps said it was uncertain as of February 28 if Ice Harbor’s lock would return to service prior to the scheduled annual lock maintenance outage.
