Odds and ends, 11/5/09

It looks like repairs to the Markland Locks and Dam might not be finished until next April, The Courier-Journal in Louisville reports.

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As I have said before, people are so concerned about the pollution that comes out of the stacks of coal-fired power plants that they overlook what happens on land to ash and other residue. Up the river from Louisville, people are protesting plans by LG&E to build a coal ash pond larger than the one that collapsed in Tennessee last year. The pond would be on the Ohio River flood plain, and some folks are worried about what would happen to Louisville's drinking water if that pond's walls were breached. Here's a story in The Chicago Tribune about it. Here's an earlier story from The Courier-Journal.

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Parts for generators at four hydroelectric plants to be built on the Ohio River will be manufactured at an Ohio River town in Monroe County OH, the Wheeling Intelligencer reports.

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Here's a cool reproduction of a 1766 map of the Ohio River.

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Work on Top 10 towboats continues.

Favorite towboats, part 2: Ohio River Co. 'turtlebacks"

I've already written about one of my favorite towboats -- a group of boats, actually. They're the old Ohio River Co. boats, which I have been told are known as "turtlebacks."

Here's another picture.

Favorite towboats, part 1: The new AEP boats

(This is the first in a series on my favorite towboats or types of towboats on the Ohio River. They are not presented in any particular order.)

Yesterday morning, as I woke Adam for another day of fourth grade, I knew he would be disappointed with the news. The mv. Buckeye State of AEP was in the Greenup locks upbound. It could pass Huntington before he got home from school.

Adam was crushed. He has wanted to see the Buckeye State since June, when I found it in a photo I took on May 22. I was on the Ohio side of the Ohio River at the Gallipolis Locks and Dam. Darkness was setting in, and I saw a new AEP boat across the river getting ready to lock through upbound. I thought it was the AEP Mariner or the Chuck Zebula. It wasn’t until several days later, when I looked at the photo more closely, that I realized it was the Buckeye State.

The Buckeye State is one of five new towboats AEP has in service, with the others being the AEP Mariner, the Chuck Zebula, the Mountain State and the AEP Leader. Adam had seen three. He was at his grandmother’s when the newest, the AEP Leader, was in this area. He really, really wanted to see the Buckeye State.

He faked a sore neck, but I didn’t fall for it. So off to school he went. Later in the day, I noticed that the Buckeye State hadn’t finished its lockage until 9:40 a.m. or so. We live about 30 miles above the Greenup Locks and Dam, so if the Buckeye State did maybe 5 mph upstream, we could see it. I caught Adam as he got off the bus. He didn’t even want to come in the house. He threw his bookbag into the car and off we went.

We didn’s see the Buckeye State until it had already passed under Huntington’s East End bridge. There are a couple of spots up the river on the Ohio side that we use when we chase towboats, so we hit both of them. We took the Ohio side because evening was coming, and the sun would shine on the boat if we viewed it from that side of the river.

It did, and we got some good photos and good views.

Adam was pleased. Now he just has to see the AEP Leader and the Hoosier State when it hits the river, and he will be satisfied.

The new AEP boats are on our Top 10 list because they are new and because they look so different. They’re tall, but they also have those large pilothouses that make them stand out from, say, a Dravo Viking.

I got to tour the AEP Mariner with my older son, Joey, last year during an open house in Huntington. The crew told us the boat has shock absorbers or some other system that dampens vibrations so much that if you wake from sleep on the boat, you can’t tell if the boat is moving.

This year, Adam and I toured the Mountain State during its open house in Point Pleasant WV. That particular boat has moved to the top of his list of favorite boats, although he does want to see the J.S. Lewis on the river some day. (Hint: It’s possible that boat is on my personal Top 10 list).

I’m in no position to judge a boat by its handling, its fuel economy, its power, comfort for its crew or anything that might matter to a person who works on it. I can only judge them by they way they look on the river. And, in some cases, how they sound. And by what they have meant to me as I received my river education.

The new AEP boats definitely make my Top 10.

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Top photo: The Buckeye State upbound passing the Lesage and/or Cox Landing area of Cabell County WV in the background. Photo taken from Rome Township in Lawrence County OH.

Here, the AEP Mariner has just passed under the West 17th Street Bridge between Huntington WV and Proctorville OH. The pilot aligns it to pass under the 6th Street Bridge.

Here, Adam puts his hands on the controls of the Mountain State. The AEP Mariner and the Chuck Zebula have a bit of a blind spot for the pilot, who has a hard time seeing the area between the tow knees. The Buckeye State, Mountain State and AEP Leader have pilothouses  where the control area has a gap so the pilot can have a better view of what's below and immediately in front of him.

And here's the Mountain State.

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These boats spend much of their time on the lower Ohio, usually in the Newburgh pool and below. We try to see them when they get up this way. One hope is to see them when they stop at the AEP port in Lakin WV. We can't get in on the West Virginia side, but there's a boat ramp across the river at Cheshire OH that we can use to get some shots.

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One more thing. In recent weeks, Adam has become a fan of Dick's Towboat Gallery. Sunday night, as he was going to bed, his momma came to wish him good night. As she did, Adam told her he was on that site and saw that the  Chuck Zebula is 166 feet long but the Mountain State is only 157 feet long. As she often does, she shook her head and said, What a kid.

Sometimes the river is so pretty...

Two good boats made for one fine day

It was a good day for chasing towboats. First, the AEP Mariner was in the area. For a long time, I've wanted to shoot a boat pushing 15 loads of coal upbound past Huntington WV. I have several boats doing that downbound, but today was the first time I could do it with a boat going up the river. Three things made it less than ideal, however. The light was low because of the clouds and the time of year. The foliage on the river bank was not what I wanted. And the river was not mirror smooth. But I'm keeping it, anyway.

Adam and I also shot it going under the East End bridge. We took it from a different location than usual so we could get a better -- at least, a different -- picture.

And we saw the Linda Reed in the area. Curious, Crounse sends the Linda Reed up this way maybe once a month, but never the Janis R. Brewer.

This evening, Adam and I checked boat locations, and we saw the Buckeye State is headed up this way. We have no way of knowing if it's going to pass Huntington or turn before it gets here, but we'll follow it. Adam is peeved that he has not seen the Buckeye State or the AEP Leader yet. Maybe we can scratch one peeve off his list.

Swan geese and bagels

My daughter is happy. This evening, the two feral swan geese that live at Harris Riverfront Park in Huntington WV came up to her and ate a bagel out of her hand. We'd never seen them come close to a human before, let alone eat out of a person's hand.

Framed by withered leaves

The leaves that remains on trees are withering, so I thought I'd see how my favorite Ohio River bridge looked framed by some. This is what I saw.

Out of the Guyandotte

In  a few days, maybe, the Guyandotte River at Huntington WV will be covered with fallen leaves. There are a few on the river now, mostly along the shores. When the river is covered with leaves, it's a pretty sight.

If you stand up on the bank, you can see leaves out in the Ohio River. You can use the leaves to figure out where the current of the Guyandotte gives way to the Ohio.

At other times of the year, usually after a heavy rain, other objects mark the boundary between the Guyandotte and the Ohio. When  the Ohio goes down, it leaves those objects on the bank of the Ohio right below the mouth of the Guyandotte.

The Guyandotte River is maybe 170 miles long and runs mainly through five counties in West Virginia -- Wyoming, Mingo, Logan, Lincoln and Cabell. The amount of trash and litter that comes out of the Guyandotte testifies to ... you know.

mv. Tri-State in the rain

I was going through some photos I shot this past summer and found this one. It's the mv. Tri-State of Marathon Petroleum heading upriver under the Silver Memorial Bridge in the rain on July 29. My 15-year-old son, Joey, held an umbrella over me so I could shoot the boat as it passed by Tu-Endie-Wie park in Point Pleasant WV.

Shooting in the rain gave an overall gray cast to the photo and blurred some of the fine details, but I didn't mind. I liked it anyway because of the rain-induced imperfections. The mood fits me some days, you know?

I'm thinking about a series on my 10 favorite towboats, and the Tri-State would be on the list.

Pomeroy-Mason Bridge remembered

While going through some old photos today, I noticed that it was one year ago this morning that I walked across the Pomeroy-Mason Bridge for the last time. Actually, I walked across it several times that day, getting plenty of photos of the old bridge and the almost finished new bridge next to it.

The sidewalk was several inches above the roadway, and it was made of boards. The morning was brisk and sunny. It was a wonderful day to document the last days of an 80-year-old bridge.

The new bridge was finished and opened a couple of months later. The old bridge was demolished earlier this year. It was one of the few remaining pre-1950 steel truss bridges in this part of the Ohio River. We still have the Ben Williamson Memorial Bridge at Ashland KY and the Ironton-Russell Bridge at Ironton OH. And that's about it, I think.