Nashville District Advances Plans For Kentucky Lock Repairs

The Nashville Engineer District has determined a course for repairs to Kentucky Lock, Tennessee River Mile 22.4, following a tow collision that damaged a floating guard wall.

While he did not go into specifics, Patrick DiNicola, chief of the maintenance section for the district, said, “We feel pretty confident we have identified the scope of the damage and what we need to do to repair it.”

DiNicola spoke on conference calls with industry leaders September 11 and again September 18.

The Nashville Engineer District is working closely with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which owns the locks and dams on the Tennessee River, and has identified a contracting vehicle to perform the work, he said. Additionally, the Corps has given advance notice to contractors of the emergency to cut down some of the contract timeline for repairs.

“The commander and up the chain here has made this our number one priority, so I can assure everyone that engineering and contracting teams are full speed on this, trying to return Kentucky to full operation,” DiNicola said.

While he did not have specific information to share about the timeline for repairs, DiNicola said the Corps was looking into temporary measures to try to return the guard wall to service with more extensive, permanent repairs coming later. Plans and specs for long-term repairs were expected in six to eight weeks to go out to the contracting pool, he said.

He added that the district commander was briefing his chain of command on the plans to gain approval, after which he hoped to be able to share them with industry.

The district has the funding to complete a design for the repairs and hopes to have cost estimates for those repairs soon, he said. DiNicola also expressed confidence in the availability of funding to complete the repairs.

The lock, near Grand Rivers, Ky., sustained damage September 1 when a commercial tow carrying approximately 22,000 tons of crushed stone struck the floating guard wall. The Nashville District announced September 8 that an assist boat, the mv. Emma Kate, was being used to help commercial tows navigate the lock, which had allowed downbound lock transits to resume after having been restricted to upbound tows only. The lock is open to traffic in both directions, but it is important for there to be no contact with the guard wall.

The damage is concentrated on the downstream end of the wall next to the lock monoliths and the machinery that ties into the wall, DiNicola said.

Caleb Skinner, supervisory navigation facility manager for the district, said the closure at Barkley Lock, 2.6 miles from Kentucky Lock via the Barkley Canal, is still expected to be complete by September 30. Reopening Barkley Lock will take some of the pressure off at Kentucky Lock, where delays were holding steady at about 4.7 days for each tow transiting the lock, as of September 18.

Skinner said that when Barkley Lock reopens, the Corps is considering moving upbound traffic through Kentucky Lock and downbound traffic through Barkley to clear the queue. He anticipates that could take about a week.

“The helper boat has been doing a fantastic job,” Skinner said.