Ceremony marks opening of new Olmsted Locks and Dam

OLMSTED, Ill. -- Federal officials including two leading U.S. senators celebrated the opening Thursday of the $3 billion Olmsted Locks and Dam on the Ohio River.

Army Corps of Engineers officials said it is the largest Corps project since construction of the Panama Canal.

The project took 30 years to complete, cost far more than originally planned and was nearly closed down at one point. Corps officials expect it to be fully operational by October.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told a large crowd at the dedication ceremony "today was a very long time in the making."

But he and U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., credited bipartisan efforts in Congress to provide the funding to bring the project to completion.

Funding also was provided through a fuel tax paid by the shipping industry, federal officials and industry representatives said at the ceremony.

McConnell told the hundreds of people gathered at the dam it took "countless hours of hard physical labor" as well as engineering and political will to build the new locks and dam.

He said it is "the largest inland waterways effort our nation has ever undertaken."

Durbin told the crowd, "Mother Nature doesn't bend easily when it comes to mighty rivers. Many men have been humbled by the determined flow of river water."

But he added "there are moments, rare moments, when a river will bend to the hands of man."

Durbin suggested that was the case with this project.

The Olmsted Locks and Dam sit upon one of the busiest stretches of river in the nation, he said. "Day in and day out, the equivalent of 25,000 semi trucks of cargo passes through this area," Durbin said.

The old locks and dams, built in the 1920s, were in danger of failing and needed to be replaced, federal officials said at the ceremony. They will be shut down when the new structure is placed in operation this fall, according to Corps officials.

Durbin said barges faced significant delays. Hundreds of barges were backed up at times waiting to get through the deteriorating locks.

With the new structure, lock times will be reduced from five hours to one hour, Durbin said.

While the price tag was high, Durbin said it is "money well spent."

Durbin said the locks and dam could pay for itself within five years in terms of economic benefit.

McConnell said the structure could provide an average annual economic benefit of $640 million. "It will be the linchpin of our country's incredible inland waterways system," he told the crowd gathered under a spacious white tent.

The project consists of two 110-foot by 1,200-foot locks, which are located adjacent to the Illinois shore, and a dam comprised of five gates which control the amount of water that flows downstream, the Corps said in a news release.

The dam sits between Olmsted in Pulaski County, Illinois, and Monkey's Eyebrow in Ballard County, Kentucky, 17 miles upriver from the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

Congress first authorized $775 million for the project in 1988. Initial construction work began in the early 1990s.

When first planned, Congress expected it to be completed within seven years. In 2002, the Southeast Missourian reported a project cost of $1.2 billion.

In 2013, the project was in danger of being shuttered as the Corps of Engineers prepared for a U.S. government shutdown.

The Southeast Missourian reported in 2013 the Corps blamed the congressional budgeting process in part for the lengthy timeline for completing the project.

But Corps officials also said at the time the "in-the-wet" construction process accounted for some of the delay and added costs.

The method involves building the dam without a cofferdam -- meaning as the river flows, the dam is being set right into the middle of it. Using a cofferdam would have diverted the river as the dam was being built.

Instead, multiton and multistory concrete and steel pieces known as shells were manufactured in a casting yard. Each took about seven months to build. The completed shells were floated into the river using special crane and barge equipment, then sunk. The Corps then poured more than 6,000 cubic yards of concrete into the pieces to hold the dam together, the Southeast Missourian reported five years ago.

Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite of the Corps said after the ceremony the Olmsted engineering will be used in other waterways projects, but in a more timely fashion and at less cost.

R.D. James, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, asked the crowd if they could imagine "the money that we would have wasted as a nation" if the project had not been completed.

If the aging locks had failed before the project was completed, it would have stopped navigation on the Ohio River, James told the audience.

"Thanks to the leadership of this nation, that did not happen," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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