I've written before here on MattChat regarding the terrible condition that our nation's locks are in.
(river locks that is..... primarily on the Mississippi River, Ohio River, Illinois River)
So..... what is getting done?
NOTHING
Nothing except bandaids and deferred maintenance, that is.
Yet another article on this topic appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek in late June.
OLD MAN RIVER NEEDS SOME WORK DONE
"some work"
What an understatement!
OUR LOCKS ARE CRAP!!!
From the article above:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the system, “continues to Band-Aid the locks to keep them operational,” says Kim Ekena, vice president of Archer Daniels Midland’s American River Transportation. “The thought was the locks would last 50 years. We are getting to a point where we are talking about 70 or 80 years.”
The Army Corps of Engineers keeps applying those Band-Aids. Michael Cox, chief of operations for the Corps’ Rock Island district, which oversees 20 locks and dams along the Mississippi River and the Illinois Waterway, is encouraged by some recent increases in funding. But he’s still “very concerned because what we are currently doing cannot be sustained for the long term.”
Yeesh!
Can anyone begin to fathom how devestating the complete failure of a lock would be?
Instead of a few weeks of maintenance, there would be years of rebuilding.
Again, I say yeesh!
Out for now......
Matt