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July 10, 1998
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Public Affairs Office
60-day closure planned; minimal effect on the St. Claude Avenue bridge, except that it will remain open to road traffic for almost the entire time.
PRESS ADVISORY: NEW ORLEANS -- The 77-year-old Industrial Canal navigation lock in New Orleans will be dewatered and closed for 60 days for major repairs. Work is to begin on or about July 27. Cost will be about $4 million. "This old lock is literally falling apart at the hinges," said Col. William L. Conner, district engineer of the New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "Our Operations Division has done an amazing job overcoming the difficulties and keeping this antique in operation. But time is running out on keeping up a structure that has been in operation since 1921," Conner said. For example, two big lock gates fabricated circa 1920 were recently refurbished. The sandblasting, to prepare for repainting, penetrated in some places right through the steel, making it necessary to weld in new steel. In June, the lock was closed for emergency repair after a 250-ton gate began tearing itself loose from the lock wall. A ½-inch steel plate anchoring the turnbuckle had cracked. Barge traffic makes the Industrial Canal lock one of the busiest in the United States. It lies at the juncture of the two highest-tonnage waterway systems in America, the Mississippi River valley and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The 60-day shutdown will force a long detour for traffic to continue between the Mississippi River and the eastbound Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The detour route runs 81 miles down river to Bayou Baptiste Collette (opposite Venice), then back north in open water. The Corps of Engineers is determined to get the work done during the seasonal low water in the second half of 1998, said Mike Park, the navigation function leader of the district. This year the work has been pushed back by persistent high water and the need to conduct breakdown repairs. "We had held off earlier because of extreme budget restraints and the anticipation of a replacement," Park said. "We tried to do it last year, but couldn't because of budget restraints. Now there is no choice. "It has been 20 years since work on this scale has been done on the Industrial Canal lock," Park said. "The wearable parts of that lock are not designed to undergo stress for that long without repair," he said. In February, headquarters of the Corps of Engineers in Washington, D.C. approved a report recommending the $531 million replacement of the Industrial Canal lock. The larger, more modern lock would be 1,200 feet long and 110 feet wide, compared with 640 by 75 feet for the present lock. No homes would be displaced by the lock-replacement project. The lock links the Mississippi River with the Industrial Canal (Inner Harbor Navigation Canal), Lake Pontchartrain and the eastbound Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Tonnage has stalled at an average 23 million tons a year because the existing lock is too small for today's needs. Delays average 10 hours, and commonly exceed 24 hours when the river is high. The report estimates the new lock would yield benefits of $110 million a year to the nation. A recent study conducted by the University of New Orleans concludes that the lock-replacement project would create 950 construction jobs annually and generate a total of $1.5 billion for the local economy. (END) Also visit these other New Orleans Links: [New Orleans Home Page] [Public Affairs Home Page] [Site Map] |