River traffic still down

I went down to Virginia Point Park again today in hopes of getting photos of boats moving around the mouth of the Big Sandy River.  I saw nary a boat moving on the water, save one Ingram boat moving maybe 3 to 4 mph down the river, just as the Harllee Branch Jr. did a couple of days ago.

I checked the Corps of Engineers' online database of traffic, and I saw things were way down at both the Greenup and the Gallipolis locks. Each saw about 27 to 28 percent fewer barges locking through in May 09 compared with May 08, and about the same decline in total tonnage of cargo moving through those locks.

Mary Harter

The late afternoon of May 22, I made a pre-arranged trip up the Ohio River to Gallia County OH to take care of some family matters. On the way back down to Huntington, I saw this boat approaching the Gallipolis Locks and Dam. The sun had set a little while before, and the countryside was starting to darken. Nevertheless, I found a spot to get pictures of this AEP boat despite the fading light.

The darkness let the lights on the lower deck and elsewhere pop out nicely. My next step is to figure out when I can be at the locks at night and to get permission to get on the visitor's platform to shoot boats locking through in the dark.

It's hard to get near the locks from the highway nowadays because of homeland security measures.