River traffic shut down on Columbia

[Chief]

http://1190kex.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=123543&article=3345941

A barge in the locks at the John Day dam lurched forward smashing into the upstream gate.

By Brad Ford
Friday, February 29, 2008

River traffic comes to a halt on the Columbia River after an accident Thursday night. A barge in the lock chamber moved forward while the water was rising hitting the upstream gate causing significant damage.

The locks are not able to operate and the barge is stuck in the lock chamber.

The Army Corps of Engineers is investigating the cause of the accident and also whether the locks can be operated in an emergency mode. If they can't be used until they're repaired, it will cause significant supply problems for cities up river from the John Day Dam. Those cities receive fuel and other supplies by barge.

Now rail and trucks will have to make up for the missing barges. The Corps hopes to determine Friday what is needed to repair the locks.

Serious problem, and we'll have to see how bad this is. I don't think they have spare gates lying around, instead, I think they have to plock the lock off with special barriers in order to even get at the locks...

Devloping...

[Waterbuffalo]

I don't think I remember where that Dam is located. I know of the name put just can't place it..

Here is a little bit of information on the dam. Yes its wikipedia.. But the information isn't 1/2 bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Day_Dam

[Waterbuffalo]

http://iinet.com/~englishriver/LewisClarkColumbiaRiver/Regions/Places/john_day_dam.html

More information..

[Chief]

It sounds to me that the Corps is prepared to run with a lesser emergency mode.

These locks have emergency gates that can be placed into grooves in the sides of the lock walls to seal off the lock iteself, and allow workers to pump the lock dry and work on the gates.

It sounds like the Corps in tends to remove the damaged lock gate this weekend. and use the temporary gate to resume lock operations, hopefully on Monday. They'll just use the temporary gate to run the locks. It's slower because the temporary gate has to be lifted in and out with a crane, but it will work.

The Corps was a week away from a regularly scheduled annual maintenance shutdown of the lock anyway, so if they can limp through next week with a temporary gate, they should be able to effect permanent repairs during the shutdown.

[Waterbuffalo]

Sounds like they're only a week away from doing the same basic maintenance on the locks that needs to be done. This basically will just advance there schedule up by seven days and get them to use the temporary gate a little longer until they get the whole locking system fixed?

[Chief]

Sounds about right. I'll be curious to see pictures of that lock gate once they get it out of the lock. They showed one of the hinge points on the news tonight, and it looked like the gears were ripped off of their foundations, so there's a lot of damage that isn't apparant right now.

This could be an expensive fix, and the towboat Company will be responsible. I hope they have good insurance...

[Waterbuffalo]

Agreed. Hope the Tow company has the money to pay for all of these fixes or the "Corps has a plan.. Did you get to hear which one it was that was responsible?

Went over to 1190kex.com and only found a small snippet. Going to go look around the 'net to see if I can find more..

[Waterbuffalo]

"Officials with the corps and the U.S. Coast Guard said the incident occurred about 11 p.m. Thursday when an upriver-bound Tidewater “tow” with four barges entered the lock. (Although collectively called a tow, barges are typically pushed by a tugboat.) The chamber works as a sort of enclosed elevator, enabling vessels to move past the dam.

“We were in the process of filling the chamber and lifting a tow to allow it to pass upstream,” Rabe said. “The front barge got hung up on the gate.”

As water poured into the chamber, the barges lifted the gate up and out of its housing.

“It created quite a mess,” Rabe said. “There was significant damage. It warped the gate, tore it out of its housing and damaged the mechanical systems inside the lock itself.”

Permanently repairing the damage will take months and “millions” of dollars, Rabe said.

Lt. Nick Barrow, a spokesman for the Coast Guard, said the cause of the incident remains under investigation. Although one of the barges carried petroleum, Coast Guard inspectors who checked the scene on Friday found no sign of a spill.

Tidewater representatives could not be reached on Friday."

Here is where I found the full article. I snipped the pertinent part....

http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/2008/02/03012008_Tow-tangle-wrecks-John-Day-lock.cfm