Cargo bottleneck
New lock key to keep river commerce flowing across the South

DAVE FLESSNER
CHATTANOOGA TIMES FREE PRESS
JULY 6, 2004

When the Chickamauga Dam and Lock was built in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt heralded the $37.5 million project as "a new artery of commerce" for the flood-prone Tennessee Valley.

But 64 years later, Chattanooga’s river artery is clogged and in need of repair.

The Chickamauga Lock is smaller than any of the downstream locks on the Tennessee River and suffers from problems of "concrete growth" in its aging chamber. Without repair, the link between the Chickamauga and Nickajack Reservoirs could be severed, cutting off 318 miles of navigable river above Chattanooga.

"If the Chickamauga Lock is not soon replaced, we are facing the complete closure of the existing lock and the loss of water-dependent industry in East Tennessee," said Jan Jones, executive director of the Tennessee Valley River Association. "We can’t let that happen."

Congress has authorized a new and larger lock at the Chickamauga Dam and initiated design work for the replacement lock. The Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the lock, is beginning work this summer to relocate phone lines along Lake Resort Drive and mussels from the riverbed to accommodate future construction of a bigger lock through the Chickamauga Dam, project manager Wayne Huddleston said.

The proposed $315 million replacement lock would be three times bigger than the existing lock and cost more than eight times as much as the entire Chickamauga Dam and Lock cost to construct from 1936 to 1940 in noninflation-adjusted dollars.

The project would be the biggest construction project in Hamilton County since TVA built the Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant near Soddy-Daisy nearly 25 years ago.

U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, the Chattanooga Republican who has made the lock replacement his top legislative priority, insists that Congress must maintain one of the region’s biggest transportation assets.

"This serves a vital national interest," he said earlier this year after top officials of the Army Corps of Engineers toured the crumbling lock.

But a government watchdog group last week called the proposed replacement lock a pork barrel project that wastes taxpayer dollars. Citizens Against Government Waste questioned the project because it wasn’t included in the president’s proposed budget for fiscal 2005. The U.S. House of Representatives has approved another $14 million for the project for fiscal 2005, but the U.S. Senate has yet to act on the proposal.

CONGRESS HOLDS KEY TO LOCK

With less than 2 million tons of cargo shipped through the Chickamauga Lock last year, the Chattanooga lock would be the smallest ever rebuilt by the Corps of Engineers.

But the lock also would be the biggest and busiest ever allowed to permanently shut down if it is not replaced.

Rep. Wamp and Rep. John Duncan, the Knoxville Republican who chairs a House transportation subcommittee, said the lock is a critical to keeping commerce flowing along the upper third of the 652-mile Tennessee River.

Olin Chlor Alkali Products plant in Charleston, Tenn., receives and ships about 670 barges a year through the Chickamauga Lock, plant manager Jon Thorstenson said. Company officials estimate such river transportation saves Olin $6 million to $10 million a year in shipping expenses.

"The lock is critical for the livelihood of our facilities," Mr. Thorstenson said. "If it was taken away, that would be a major competitive disadvantage for us."

Olin has about 275 employees at its Charleston plant and supports an adjacent 300-employee plant owned by Arch Chemical Co.

Even the threat of closing the lock may have already discouraged some river commerce, Ms. Jones said.

"We’ve had numerous calls in our office from representatives of industry that wanted to locate a facility in the corridor between Chattanooga and Knoxville," she said. "But if they need water transportation they just couldn’t risk building a multimillion-dollar facility if the lock might close and cut off barge traffic."

Ms. Jones blamed much of the 30 percent drop in cargo shipments through the Chickamauga Lock since 1997 on concerns about the future of the lock.

The lock is unique in that it was built by the Tennessee Valley Authority but is now controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers, which has a backlog of other projects at more heavily used inland waterways.

An economic analysis by the Corps found that a new lock at the Chickamauga Dam would generate at least a $1.9 million annual economic gain from the additional business spurred by a new lock compared with the costs of its construction.

"GROWING CONCRETE"

The Chickamauga Lock is plagued by problems caused by a chemical reaction when alkali in the cement reacts with carbonate materials in the rock used to build the facility. A gel is formed that absorbs water and causes the cement in the lock to expand. The lock has "grown" from 4 to 8 inches during its lifetime, forcing repair crews to continually have to realign lock equipment.

"The problem is particularly bad here because of the rock that was used to build the lock," Chickamauga Lockmaster Keith Holley said. "It’s been a problem almost from the time the lock first opened."

Starting July 27, the Corps will remove the water from the lock chamber for the first time in five years for a three-week inspection and repair program.

Within the next decade, the problem is expected to reach a point that the lock is no longer safe to operate and will have to be replaced.

But rather than replace the existing lock with a comparablysized chamber, Congress authorized construction of a 110-by-600-foot lock. The timetable for building the lock is dependent upon congressional funding each year, but Mr. Huddleston said the current schedule calls for a new lock to open by 2011.

A bigger lock can’t come too soon for Bill Dyer, a 68-year-old barge operator who has worked on inland waterways since he was 13 years old. Mr. Dyer said when one of its 15-barge tows approaches the Chickamauga Lock, the towboat must break apart the barges and lock them through the Chickamauga Lock one at a time. That can easily take 16 to 18 hours, he said.

"A new lock would be eight times faster and a lot less demanding on our crew," he said. "That shipping rates above Chattanooga are now twice as high as those below the Chickamauga Dam is because of the small size of that lock."

Mr. Dyer said a replacement lock is critical to providing both recreational and commercial usage of the Tennessee River. Such river transportation helps limit shipping costs and provides a cheaper alternative to trucking for bulk items not needing quick delivery.

"Every barge keeps another 60 trucks off the highway," Mr. Dyer said. "If we want to keep traffic flowing on our highways, we need to make sure we maintain our inland waterways."