River infrastructure problems in the Pittsburgh District

This is a long PDF file, but it's a good one. It's the Fall 2001 issue of Pittsburgh Engineer, and it has several articles about ongoing problems with navigation dams in the Pittsburgh District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. One article talks at length about problems at the Montgomery Locks and Dam. I like the opening paragraph in particular.

The US Army Corps of Engineers’ Pittsburgh District maintains the oldest, largest and most fatigued lock and dam network in the nation’s inland marine transportation system. Many of its structures are approaching an alarming tipping point where deterioration, inefficient funding and roughly $400 million in backlogged critical maintenance are converging to push the aging system to the brink of catastrophic failure. Nowhere is this more evident than at Montgomery Locks and Dam on the Ohio River and Elizabeth Locks and Dam on the Monongahela River, where the Corps has spent millions of dollars on temporary repairs.

Check it out. There are a lot of details in there.