Gate Cracks Extend Lockport Closure
Cracks found in both lower miter gates during dewatering have extended the closure of the Lockport Lock, located at Illinois River Mile 291.
The lock closed for installation of new vertical lift gates and sill and seal modifications and repairs January 28 and was scheduled to reopen March 28. Instead, the lock will remain closed until sometime between April 30 and May 6, according to current estimates.
Mike Walsh, chief of the Waterways Project Office for the Chicago Engineer District, provided the update on a videoconference call with the Illinois River Carriers’ Association on February 24.
Once temporary repairs are carried out, he said, the lock must close for more permanent repairs for another four to six weeks later this year.
There is no auxiliary chamber at the site, so any closures will prevent traffic into and out of the Lockport pool of the river. That will also cut off river commerce between Chicago and the Mississippi River.
Walsh said the lock chamber’s miter gates were first inspected February 12, with the first gate crack discovered February 19 during a more extensive inspection. A crack in the second lower miter gate was then discovered February 21.
“What we found, unfortunately, is the pintle castings for both gates are severely damaged,” Walsh said. “They are cracked.”
He said the bushings are also severely cracked.
Walsh said the cracking in the left lower gate is the worst “but the right is cracked all the way through as well.”
“The bottom line is that we cannot operate these gates in their current condition,” Walsh said.
No spare pintle castings for the gates exist, so repairs will take time, Walsh said.
“Both miter gates are likely going to need to be pulled,” he said. “There is potentially an option to jack those gates, and we’re currently evaluating those risks.”
The Corps was meeting with command staff February 25 to begin determining a temporary repair plan that will need to include constant monitoring, Walsh said, saying that plan would likely take about another week to finalize. One option under discussion is the possibility of placing a carbon fiber wrap around the castings for additional support.
A team was also investigating the cause of the gate cracking in an effort to reduce stresses on the cracked pintle castings once they are repaired. One likely cause was an issue with quoin block contacts, he said. The quoin portions of the gates are designed to spread the pressure of water across the entire lock when the chamber fills and opens instead of only on the gate and its pintles, the hinges that allow the gates to swing open and closed.
A heavy-lift crane is needed to remove the gates for repairs, but those are not easily accessible. The Hercules heavy-lift crane is trapped on the ice-covered Upper Mississippi. The Quad Cities II heavy-lift crane is committed to the St. Louis District likely until the end of March, Walsh said. It is being used on a repair project at Mel Price Locks and Dam. He said engineers had also looked at the possibility of employing another crane,but added that there are bridge clearance issues on the Illinois Waterway that make that improbable.
The repairs that must be completed for the lock to resume operation were not part of the scope of work due to be completed at the site, so finding funding to perform the additional interim and permanent repairs could be another challenge, Walsh said.“We’re currently working through all the options,” he said.
Permanent repairs could include new castings, 3D printing or machine-forged block.
“We’re investigating multiple avenues to deliver quality replacement parts as quickly as possible,” Walsh said, adding, “We are working to try to expedite as much of this as we possibly can.”
The pintle castings were installed in the mid-1980s when the miter gates were replaced, Walsh said. The chamber was last dewatered in 2019. No cracking of the pintle castings was identified in that dewatering.
Terry Bass, president of the Illinois River Carriers’ Association, said he was left speechless after hearing the update.
On a subsequent call, he said, “I told the Coast Guard I considered this an emergency. Nobody in the industry was expecting them to come back and say it was going to be closed another 30 days or more.”
Bass said he would like to see the heavy-lift crane moved immediately from Mel Price Locks and Dam to get started on repairs since that facility has an auxiliary lock, rather than waiting another month for temporary repairs to begin.
He explained that upriver facilities, including oil refineries, would not be able to ship out waste oil products.
“The stuff we’re moving out of there can’t be moved by rail or pipeline or truck,” he said.
He noted that his company, Blessy Marine Services, had staged additional empty tank barges in the area to hold extra waste oil from refineries to get through the original closure, but there weren’t enough available to get through the extended lock shutdown. That left companies trying to shuffle resources and accommodate customers so they didn’t have to shut down operations.
“At the end of the day, we’re in the customer service business, and our customers rely on the information we give them,” Bass said.
He said he also had in the back of his mind that the Corps of Engineers was forced to close the main navigation lock at Wilson Locks and Dam near Florence, Ala., September 25 after it found that cracks had developed in both of its lower miter gates, including cracked pintle castings believed to have originated with problems in quoin gap spacing. That lock is anticipated to remain closed until June 14, after it was determined that it was not safe to reopen the chamber after temporary repairs. A permanent solution includes replacement with forged pintle castings and the addition of gate bracing. However, the Wilson facility, unlike Lockport, has an auxiliary lock through which one standard-sized barge at a time can transit.
Walsh said he hoped to be able to disseminate more information to industry about plans for Lockport repairs by February 28.
————
Photo caption: The Lockport Lock on the Illinois River is inoperable after cracks were discovered February 19 and February 21 in both lower miter gates. (Photo courtesy of Chicago Engineer District)
