Locks and Dam 4 project nearing completion
Courtesy of Michel Sauret
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District began refilling the newly constructed lock chamber with water at the Monongahela River Locks and Dam 4 in Charleroi last week.
Photos: Courtesy of Michel Sauret
The chamber was filled with approximately 18.5 million gallons of water. Once filled, the Pittsburgh District of the Army Corps of Engineers will move forward with installing the miter gates and testing out the lock for navigation.
Courtesy of Michel Sauret
Another view of the water filling the newly constructed lock at Locks and Dam 4 in Charleroi. The new lock is expected to go into operation in 2024.
Photos: Courtesy of Michel Sauret
A look at a newly constructed lock chamber at the Monongahela River Locks and Dam 4 in Charleroi
The completion of the Locks and Dam 4 project on the Monongahela River, which began nearly 20 years ago, is drawing near.
“We’re at a milestone right now,” Steve Dine, resident engineer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lower Mon Field Office, said recently.
The milestone to which Dine referred was the filling of about 18.5 million gallons of water at the newly constructed chamber at Locks and Dam 4 on the Monongahela River in Charleroi.
The Army Corps of Engineers operate and maintain the locks and dams.
Locks and Dams 2, 3 and 4 are the last of the old and undersized locks on the Monongahela River system with components in service for more than a century.
The locks experience the highest volume of commercial traffic on the river’s navigation system and the pools created by the facilities provide industrial and municipal water.
The Lower Mon Project addresses the three locks and dams and includes replacing a nearly 100-year-old crest dam with a gated dam at Locks and Dam 2 in Braddock, removing Locks and Dam 3 in Elizabeth and constructing two new larger locks at Locks and Dam 4 in Charleroi.
“For the past year-and-a-half to two years, we emptied the chamber and we had to excavate the old river bottom,” Dine explained. “We had to build a new chamber from the inside out. We’ve placed all of our concrete in the chamber and will fill it back up for the next phase of construction.”
Dine said he expected the chamber to be filled by this past weekend.
“(It was) three to four days of pumping from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” Dine said. “We’ll shut the pumps off, the chamber will be full and we’ll start the next phase of construction.”
The next phase of the project involves a transition from the large items of construction to more mechanical and electrical work to make the chamber operational. To do that, steps will be taken to prevent water from naturally flowing into the chamber.
“The remaining part of the project is setting the miter gates, which are our operational gates, and the machinery that operates them,” Dine said.
That will be followed by a testing period to make sure everything works as designed and to the point that river traffic runs efficiently. The new lock is expected to go into operation in 2024.
Locks and Dam 4 was originally constructed in 1932, but the most recent modification to build a larger lock began in 2004. Work on this particular chamber began in 2015.
“It provides industry with a more efficient means of transporting goods up and down the river,” Dine explained. “If a tow is pushing six barges up in two rows, they need to break that apart because they can only fit three barges through the chamber. You’re looking at an hour-and-a-half to two hours to get six barges through. Once we have this chamber operational, industry will be able to push those six barges through in about 30 minutes. That’s going to save industry a lot of time and money.”