Wilson Lock Scheduled To Reopen July 8

Repairs at Wilson Lock and Dam are expected to be complete and the chamber reopened on July 8.

While work is still ongoing, several key tasks have been completed, allowing the Nashville Engineer District to announce the projected opening date, said Brian Mangrum, chief of the district’s technical support branch, in a June 10 industry update call.

The lock, located at Tennessee River Mile 259.4 in Florence, Ala., closed September 25, when lock operators heard popping noises that turned out to be extensive cracking in both gates’ downstream miter gates’ pintle balls, along with some steel girders. Pintles are the hinges on which the lock gates swing.

Mangrum said in the call that progress over the past week had included gate anchorage components on both gates being reassembled and operating machinery reattached. The regional heavy capacity fleet has all the equipment and materials on-site that are needed to complete the rest of the work, he said.

A team was expected to finish the removal of jacking guides and support components soon. Steel bracing was to be installed in the heels near the pintle area of the gates over the next week to 10 days. The bracing is designed to mitigate or disperse any potential load stressing at the heels of the gates. Quoin block adjustments were also necessary to wrap up the repairs.

The Tennessee Valley Authority reported that ancillary work on interim guidewall barges has been completed near Pickwick Lock and Dam. Once the lock is reopened, the barges will be transported to the nearby fleet harbor to begin prep work while the queue at Wilson is cleared. The barges will then be floated into position and the spuds set to allow normal locking operations to resume.

The main chamber must be closed again to allow for the guidewall installation, which is expected to take two weeks. The auxiliary chamber will remain open during that time. TVA expects to turn the lock back over to the Corps around the first week of August for normal operations to resume, Mangrum said.

While the work is being completed, the auxiliary chamber continues to perform as needed, Mangrum said.