Mississippi River lock working again

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Barges began moving again on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis on Tuesday, five days after river traffic was shut down while repairs were made to an aging lock.

All of the backed-up river traffic was expected to clear Lock 25 at Winfield, about 45 miles north of St. Louis, by late Tuesday, said Alan Dooley, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office in St. Louis.

The unscheduled repair work involved a deteriorating hinge on a downstream gate. The gates open or close at the ends of the lock chamber so the water level can be raised or lowered, taking vessels to different levels of the river. The gates themselves were not damaged.

Barges and boats began moving through the lock at 12:45 a.m. About 200 barges had been waiting to clear the lock, though they weren't physically lined up on the river.

"They generally just find a safe place to pull over and sit," said Larry Daily, president of Alter Barge Line, Inc., based in Bettendorf, Iowa.

Alter had five barge tows — a total of 60 barges — that had been waiting two or three days to clear the lock. The business was shipping corn and soybeans downstream, mainly for export. It was also sending fertilizer, steel and coal, as well as empty barges, up the river.

Daily said the industry had been worried about delays in getting fertilizer to farmers, but noted after severe rainstorms and snow melt in much of the Midwest, many farmers were waiting for their fields to dry out before planting.

Daily praised the corps for maintaining the aging locks on the river, "but it's 1930s and 1940s technology."

Lock 25 began operation in 1939. Last year, more than 30 million tons of commodity cargo passed through the lock.

It is one of seven locks on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers authorized for expansion with a 1,200-foot-long chamber through last year's Water Resources Development Act. Expansion of the locks is expected to cost about $2 billion, the corps said.

That money would not cover the repair to the existing lock, but the corps will likely pursue emergency operations and maintenance funding, Dooley said.

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AP reporter Dick Kelsey in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.