In case I forget to tell you later ...

One more look back

If you work in the news business, you have to do a year-in-review article. That usually includes a list of the ten biggest stories of the year.

So what were the biggest stories on the Ohio River in 2016? The more I thought about it, the more I realized I could not rank them. How big the stories are depends on where you live and what you do. Starting from that, here are a few of the biggest stories of the year, unranked.

If you live in the Louisville area, the opening of the new Lewis and Clark Bridge has to be a big deal. By the way, today they start collecting tolls.

If you work on the river down in the Paducah area, the continuing deterioration of Locks and Dam 52 has to be high on your list.

At the end of the river, you have to vote for the problems at the New Cumberland Locks and Dam. The Pittsburgh District of the Army Corps of Engineers has posted a short piece on its website about what happened there. Longer term, you have continuing lobbying for improvements at Emsworth and Montgomery.

If you are more interested in the energy industry, three developments would interest you.

First, the startup of hydroelectric power projects at the Meldahl, Willow Island and Cannelton locks and dams.

Second, the continuing sell-off of coal-fired power plants by utilities in states where the retail electricity market has been deregulated. The Gavin plant at Cheshire, Ohio, is one of those.

Third, the continuing decline in coal traffic on the Ohio. More on that when year-end numbers become available.

Another nominee would be that Jeffboat built its first towboat at Jeffersonville in a long time.

Here in my area around Mile 308, the big story would have been the opening of the new bridge connecting Ironton, Ohio, and Russell, Kentucky. Undoubtedly there are other things that have happened that are big news locally but not so big elsewhere. Among those I will nominate the possibility of ferry service connecting the casino at Rising Sun, Indiana, with the nearby communities in Northern Kentucky, which is shorthand for the Cincinnati area.

Those are my choices. What did I miss?

M/V Linda Reed (three pictures)

Going through the photo files at the end of the year to see what's worth to share but hasn't been ...

Here is a photo spread of the Linda Reed that I got a few weeks back, as you can tell from the leaves on the trees.

The Linda Reed was upbound at Huntington WV when it encountered an AEP boat. At or near a marina, the Linda Reed had to alter its course. This was how it looked from shore.

I don't know that I had seen a boat make that maneuver in that location before.

Most popular posts of 2016

In case anyone was wondering what the most popular posts here on the Ohio River Blog were this year, six stood out in terms of viewership. Ranked from Number 1 to Number 6, they are:

A flatboat stops at Huntington. 8/15. This also is the fourth most popular post in the seven and a half years of the blog.

Fishing at the boat ramp. 8/19.

Gavin sold? 9/13.

New Cumberland out of service 12/14.

Monday morning at Big Sandy Harbor 10/17.

Big Sandy River navigation 8/27

My thanks to all who have viewed this blog and who will view it next year and beyond.

DuPont loses C8 lawsuit

A chemical used in producing Teflon and which was discharged into the Ohio River below Parkersburg WV has been found guilty again of causing cancer in humans following a federal civil trial in Columbus OH.

The story from The Columbus Dispatch is here.

For another perspective, check out this one.

And for the company's side of this long-running story, go here.

Markland hydro moderization

Hydropower development on the Ohio River continues.

Duke Energy announced this week it will modernize its hydroelectric station at the Markland Locks and Dam beginning next year. The process will take about four years to complete.

The Markland hydro station is the second-oldest on the Ohio.

New Cumberland to re-open tomorrow

This came from the Pittsburgh District late this afternoon.

PITTSBURGH -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Pittsburgh is set to resume navigation operations tomorrow starting at 8 a.m. at the New Cumberland Locks and Dam on the Ohio River.

The lock shutdown Dec. 12 after a hydraulic system failure.

Lockages will be performed from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. ...

Mariners should expect delays and are urged to use extreme caution when entering or exiting the lower end of the chamber to avoid damage to the miter gates or lock structure.

The Pittsburgh District has requested emergency funds to apply to a long-term repair. 

The closure stopped navigation on the Ohio River upstream and downstream of the lock, creating a backlog of commercial vessels awaiting passage. 

The lock staff determined that the hydraulic system that operates the main chamber's four 170-ton miter gates and the emptying and filling valves had failed. A repair crew capped and tested damaged hydraulic lines and will continue to monitor the situation. 

The Corps immediately deployed spill response measures to mitigate the spill upon its discovery and halted operations of the lock's hydraulic system. 

The spill was mostly contained in the 110-ft by 1,200-ft primary lock chamber though a small amount did enter the waterway. Crews placed on-site spill containment booms to absorb fluid that escaped from the chamber and to stop the spread of fluid.

The district dispatched civil and environmental experts to investigate the spill and reported the situation to the U.S. Coast Guard's National Response Center, navigation interests and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which monitors water quality on the Ohio River. 

New Cumberland Locks and Dam is comprised of two lock chambers, an auxiliary and a main chamber. The Corps placed the 110-ft by 600-ft auxiliary lock chamber out of service approximately two years ago due to structural issues that prevent its safe operation.  ...

The Pittsburgh District’s 23 locks and dams on the upper Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny rivers represent the oldest and largest network of navigation facilities in the Army Corps’ national inland marine transportation system.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review had a pretty good article about the shutdown and the story behind the story.

Update on New Cumberland

Today I had an email conversation with Jeff Hawk, public affairs officer for the Pittsburgh District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, about the situation at New Cumberland. He's had a busy day fielding questions from media and others, as you can imagine.

Here's the update he provided on the current situation:

"Crews are working right now to isolate the source of the failure. They are capping lines and then testing them. We are working to re-open on Saturday, if all goes well. That's the temp fix. The long-term fix will be months away if we receive emergency funding. We have submitted a funding request up to HQ USACE. There is a queue of tows, about 10, awaiting passage, many hauling coal. "

Then I asked about the permanent outage in the auxiliary lock. People have spent all year talking about the possibility of a major failure at Emsworth and Montgomery, which are a couple of decades older than New Cumberland. New Cumberland, along with Greenup, was one of the first all-new locks and dams to be built in the 1950s. His reply:

"The auxiliary chamber is closed due to the condition of lock miter gates. The gates have severe structural cracks that prevent the gates from being operated in a safe manner. The cracks are so extensive and severe that the gates cannot be economically repaired and must be replaced. Funds are not currently available to fabricate new gates and replace the deteriorated gates. The service design life for a navigation project is 50 years. These gates were likely placed in the late 1950s. The request for emergency funds will not include funds for the auxiliary chamber."

Hawk said photos of the situation at New Cumberland will be posted on the Pittsburgh District's Flickr page. 

49 years ago

One year from today is the 50th anniversary of the collapse of the Silver Bridge.

A postcard I bought in Gallipolis a few years after the bridge collapsed.

The bridge connected Point Pleasant, W.Va., with Kanauga, Ohio, an unincorporated community just north of Gallipolis, Ohio. To say the bridge's demise was traumatic to both communities is an understatement.

As it happens, the collapse occurred on a Friday evening. Next year, December 15 falls on a Friday. I assume plans are in the works to mark next year's anniversary. Many of the people most associated with the search and recovery efforts have passed away, but many people who are still alive can tell you where they were when they heard the news, just as my mother did regarding Pearl Harbor, some people do about the JFK assassination and some people today do about the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion and 9/11.

When some people talk about the disaster that took 46 lives, they have to bring in the Mothman. My own theory is that the bridge collapse was so bad that the Mothman foolishness ended that night and came back only after the pain of loss eased a bit.

A point of business trivia: The Silver Bridge's location was one reason a restaurant owner by the name of Bob Evans became so successful.

A lot has been written about the Silver Bridge, and more will be written. Many of the reasons we have safe bridges today goes back to what happened 49 years ago. We'll leave it there for now.

New Cumberland out of service

Traffic through the New Cumberland Locks and Dam -- the first of the newer generation of dams below Pittsburgh -- has come to halt after problems were found in the main lock chamber. The smaller lock was taken out of service a couple of years ago, so nothing is moving through New Cumberland right now.

Here is a story from a Pittsburgh newspaper, and here is one from Steubenville, Ohio.

As of this writing, eight towboats are in queue waiting to transit New Cumberland. It looks like Marathon Petroleum has two boats stuck above the locks waiting to come home.

The Pittsburgh District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released this statement on Tuesday, December 13:

Hydraulic system failure at Ohio River lock halts river navigation

PITTSBURGH -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Pittsburgh is alerting commercial navigation companies that operations at the New Cumberland Locks and Dam on the Ohio River, eight miles south of Wellsville, Ohio, halted after crews noticed a sheen inside the facility's main chamber.

The lock staff determined that the hydraulic system that operates the main chamber's four 170-ton miter gates and the emptying and filling valves had failed.

The closure effectively stops navigation on the Ohio River upstream and downstream of the lock, creating a backlog of commercial vessels awaiting passage.

The lock will be out of operation for at least the next few days while engineers and maintenance crews determine a temporary solution to bring the lock chamber back into service. A more long-term fix could be several months away.

The Corps immediately deployed spill response measures to mitigate the spill upon its discovery and halted operations of the lock's hydraulic system.

The spill is mostly contained in the 110-ft by 1,200-ft primary lock chamber though a small amount did enter the waterway. Crews placed on-site spill containment booms to absorb fluid that escaped from the chamber and to stop the spread of fluid.

The district dispatched civil and environmental experts to investigate the spill and reported the situation to the U.S. Coast Guard's National Response Center, navigation interests and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which monitors water quality on the Ohio River.

New Cumberland Locks and Dam is comprised of two lock chambers, an auxiliary and a main chamber. The Corps placed the 110-ft by 600-ft auxiliary lock chamber out of service approximately two years ago due to structural issues that prevent its safe operation.

Crews continue to monitor the situation. No further spillage is expected due to the current shutdown of the hydraulic system and closure of the chamber.

Mariners are advised to monitor marine radio Channel 13 for additional information.

The Pittsburgh District’s 23 locks and dams on the upper Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny rivers represent the oldest and largest network of navigation facilities in the Army Corps’ national inland marine transportation system.

Three new locks and dams authorized

According to this article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Congress has approved replacing the Emsworth, Dashields and Montgomery locks and dams on the upper Ohio.The big question now is when the money will be available to do the work.

M/V David Stegbauer

My camera does not perform well in low light, but I keep trying,

This is the M/V David Stegbauer passing beautiful downtown Huntington WV this evening. Fifteen to twenty minutes earlier and there would have been enough daylight for a better shot, but you go with what life gives you.

M/V Sandy Drake

Before retiring for the evening, I reviewed some pictures from recent weeks. On a whim, I converted some to black and white. Some looked pretty good. Some were fair to middling. This was from the second group.

I'm getting to like black and white photography more for some reason.

Three boats from last week

I had to go up to Point Pleasant WV last Thursday. While I was there, I saw three boats worth getting pictures of.

First, the M/V Robert Dean Moore as seen from Henderson WV. This was on the Kanawha River less than a mile from the mouth.

Then the Andy Mullins moving from the Ohio to the Kanawha.

And the Jeffrey A. Raike departing the Gallipolis Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam.

The politicians and the Corps of Engineers say the name is Robert C. Byrd, but I'm old enough and set in my ways enough that it's still the Gallipolis Locks and Dam.