| Willamette Falls Locks |
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| Second Chance for an Oregon Treasure- October 29, 2009 - The Oregonian |
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Congress approves more than $900,000 to keep the 136-year-old locks open
By Nicole Dungca (The Oregonian)
After teetering on the edge of permanent closure for almost two years, the Willamette Falls Locks appear ready to open next year after several months of repairs.
As workers prepared to replace the biggest gate of the Willametter Falls Locks this month, Congress approved more than $900,000 to keep the 136-year-old facility open. The bill, which President Barack Obama signed Wednesday, will reserve $230,000 for minimal seasonal operations.
The locks have been closed since January 2008, and it wasn't long ago that local historians and tourist agencies were petitioning local politicians to keep the Army Corps of Engineers from closing them for good. Although the Willamette River passageway was locally treasured and a registered historic site, maintenance problems and a lack of commercial traffic made paying for them a tough sell.
But now that the Army Corps of Engineers budget has cleared the House and the Senate, the lock system's status is secure - at least for now.
Stimulus Money
When a private company opened the Willamette Falls Locks on New Year's Day in 1873, expectations were high.
Merchants were eager to use the $600,000 system to transport goods on the Willamette River, blocked by the 40-foot-falls. For a few decades, steamboats and barges dominated Willamette Valley commercial traffic, using the multichambered lock system.
When trains overtook commercial river transportation, the locks became less essential.
"The idea, of course, was to make the Willamette a major transportation artery," said Bill Lang, a history professor at Portland State University. "But it never really developed that way."
Log booms went through the locks for years, but pleasure boats had become the major customer before the locks were closed in January 2008.
Funding troubles continued to plague the locks until April, when federeal stimulus money provided the $1.8 million necessary to complete the inspection and repairs. The amount was far more than the annual operating cost, which could run anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000, according to Diana Fredlund, a corps spokeswoman.
The stimulus money, in addition to the recently approved $900,000, will ensure that repairs will be done by the end of February. After the completed inspection and repairs, the corps will determine a schedule of operation.
Officials who lobbied heavily for the reopening see it as a way to provide jobs and revive an area ready for commerce. If the locks are reliable and kept in good condition, companies may consider using them again, said U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore.
"There is a big overwhelming interest on the part of Congress to help support local communities' economic developement, and this is an opportunity for huge development," Schrader said.
Unique Challenges
Since workers began to inspect and repair the locks nearly two years ago, they have been discovering features singular to a project constructed in the latter part of the19th century.
"Just in the fact that you have a very old structure, you'll have a lot of unique challenges for safety and continued operations," said Pat Duyck, Army Corps of Engineers project manager for the site.
The locks underwent changes as technology advanced - including the introduction of a hydraulic system instead of manually operated locks, and a switch from wooden to steel gates, but much of the original technology has stayed the same.
With four chambers, a canal basin and a guard lock, its structure differs from other local systems. The lock at the Dalles Dam and others on the Columbia River feature only one chamber, Fredlund said.
Because of the seven gates, inspections typically take longer. Some newer locks feature bulkheads, or water barriers, that make gate repair more manageable by helping to easily empty the chambers. But working with the locks in West Linn necessitates a barge removing an entier side of each gate - with each side weighing up to 68,000 pounds - in order to do repairs Duyck said.
Although the steel gates were installed in the 1940's, they are still difference from the gates on the Columbia River locks, he said.
"The locks on the Columbia are just a lot more robust with block-wall construction, " Duyck said. "It's not a solid concrete wall, which was just a function of the era that the Willamette locks were built in."
Workers have been laboring on the gates' pintle-bearing, which helps gates swing open and closed, and welding the first gate this month. Returning the first gate to its original postion has been pushed back multiple times, and there are two more gates to inspect and repair. For some of the gates, workers found more damage - various cracks in the steel - than expected.
The project's completion, previously expected in October, will likely be pushed back to February.
Historical Marvel
Local history buffs such as Sandy Carter, the executive director of the Willamette Falls Heritage Foundation, are relieved to see a future for the locks.
In 2004, Carter and other supporters began holding Lockfest, which was aimed at bringing awareness to the historical significance of the locks. The locks, billed as the "oldest continually operated multichambered canal and navigation lock system in the country," were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Lang says the locks are a throwback to another era, before lock systems were installed with hydroelectric power in mind. Although the locks aren't a strong source of commerce anymore, some historians say that their mere existence is impressive.
"It is a bit of an anachronism, but it's sort of an essential one because if provides a public service," said Bill Willingham, former historian for Army Corps of Engineers. "It's such a unique piece of Oregon history, and it's managed to continue to function. It would be a shame to lose it."
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| Stimulus Funds Will Put Locks Back in Business |
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Clackamas County Review Reports...
Testing on the locks will take place over the summer, long-term funding is still an issue.
The Willamette Falls Locks could reopen as soon as May, 2010, thanks to $1.8 million in federal stimulus money awarded to the U.S, Army Corps of Engineers.
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| Stimulus Money for the Locks |
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Official word was received on April 29, 2009, that the Willamette Locks will receive $1.8 million in federal stimulus funding.
This funding will be used to complete the inspection and any/all necessary repairs. It is important to note that the original request was based not just on repairs to the gates, but also other repairs and upgrades noted in the 2007 Inca Engineering report.
A collective thanks to everyone involved who helped get this engineering upgrade the funding it desperately deserved.
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| Willamette Falls Locks |
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Willamette Falls Locks Operating Schedule -Update
Locks Pass Inspection But Remain Closed -Clackamas Review, by Clara Hansen
February 11, 2009
Members of a coalition working to repair and reopen the Willamette Falls Locks could breathe a collective sigh of relief following an inspection last week.
The long-delayed hydraulic steel and structure inspection of Gate 3 -considered a harbinger of problems because it went the longest of the seven gates without repairs -revealed "no major structural flaws," said project manager Jeremy Weber of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Contractors were expected to replace the shock-absorbing timber casing with a longer-lasting plastic product made of recycled materials, and weld some cracks on the steel skeleton before putting the gate back in its slot this week.
But it's unclear whether the Army Corps of Engineers will be able to fund a full inspection of the entire lock and gate system and reopen the Willamette Falls Locks -a water elevator of sorts for river-going vessels -any time soon.
"We don't have funding for the complete inspection," said Diana Fredlund, a Portland district representative of the Corps. "There are a lot of different pieces that need to be inspected."
Still, the fact that Gate 3 was in decent shape was good news to a group of entities rallying to save the locks.
And with the Corps in line for a hefty chunk of stimulus funding in proposals working their way toward approval in Washington, D.C., members of the One River Coalition are optimistic some will be funneled toward the mothballed locks system on the banks of West Linn.
Stimulus funding is targeted for projects ready for bidding or already underway, said Steve Greenwood of Oregon Solutions, a nonprofit supported by the governor working with local and regional partners in the One River Group.
With a barge-mounted crane already at the site and a contract in place, he feels the locks system is a strong contender.
"It doesn't get much more shovel-ready than this," Greenwood said.
The locks have been closed to river traffic since last winter as groups work to cobble together funding for the inspection, a review required periodically.
Until then, boats and barges traversed the 42-foot drop of Willamette Falls by passing through a lock-and-gate lift system.
Gates open to allow vessels' passage between the four lock chambers, providing the only safe passage between the upper and lower sections of the Willamette River.
A variety of entities came together to help foot the bill for operations when it became clear the Corps of Engineers was struggling, but the funding shortfall remains large.
For the first phase of the inspection, the Corps scraped together about $600,000 -about four times the system's annual operating expenses -from its accounts. The Oregon Department of Transportation also pitched in.
But it turned out the complete inspection and necessary repairs could cost $2.37 million, according to One River Coalition materials.
Now, even if stimulus money comes through for the Corps, that doesn't guarantee funding of the local project.
The department prioritizes projects according to tonnage -how much passes through a port of other waterway system, said Fredlund, the Corps spokeswoman.
"Looking at the Columbia River, Bonneville and John Day, there are hundreds of millions of tons of grain that go through," she said. :When you look at the Willamette Falls Locks, unfortunately it's jet boats with 30 to 40 people on them, and possibly some mill traffic.
Given the infrastructure needs nationwide, she said, the locks don't rank very high.
"That's not because we don't thing they're important...," Fredlund said. "I don't want to create false hope."
Willamette Falls Locks are on inspection from a bright and busy future!
The locks have a final safety inspection and then the locks will be operational once again in late 2008. According to sources at the Portland District Corps of Engineers office, the Corps' reprogramming request, identifying money to pay for the Judraulic Steel Structures inspection, has been signed by the Assistant Secretary of the Army and sent on to the congressional committee that requested it. The inspection, which will take approximately three months, may being right after Lock Fest and may overlap or actually start in the Federal budget year 2008-2009, which begins October 1.
Boaters and flotillas who have participated in the past at Lock Fest will not be able to float the river. Instead, the Willamette Falls Heritage Foundation urges boaters to visit on land, at the Locks park.
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| 2008 Lock Fest Team Accentuates the Positive |
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Lock Fest planning has started and with the West Linn Arts Festival as a partner with an event on the same day -September 13, 2008.
The Willamette Falls Heritage Foundation hopes families and history lovers will bring the whole family, invite out-of-town guests, and take in one of West Linn's signature events.
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