Page 21: of Marine News Magazine (December 2017)

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In service since 1928, Locks and Dams 52 and 53 will be replaced by the Olmsted Lock and Dam which was autho- rized in 1988, but will not open until next year. Once Olmst- ed is ? nished, L&D 52-53 will be dismantled and removed.

The failure of this critical infrastructure came just three months after President Trump visited the Ohio River on

June 7, proclaiming that “these critical corridors of com- merce depend on a dilapidated system of locks and dams that are more than half a century old. And their condi- tion, as you know better than anybody, is in bad shape. It continues to decay. Capital improvements of the system, which [are] so important, have been massively underfund- ed. And there’s an $8.7 billion maintenance backlog that is only getting bigger and getting worse....citizens know ? rst- hand that the rivers, like the beautiful Ohio River, carry the life blood of our heartland,” he said.

During his June speech, the President also noted a simi- lar outage on the river near Pittsburgh, saying, “Last De- cember ... one lock built more than 50 years ago had to be shut down for ? ve days due to hydraulic failure. And you know what that means? Five days means everything comes to a halt. We simply cannot tolerate a ? ve-day shutdown on a major thoroughfare for American coal, American oil, and American steel, which is going to get more and bigger ... America must have the best, fastest and most reliable infrastructure anywhere in the world. We cannot accept these conditions any longer.”

While few details have been revealed, the Trump Ad- ministration has said that it will undertake a $1 trillion infrastructure initiative to repair America’s infrastructure, which WCI hopes will include the inland waterways’ locks and dams among other areas being considered for mod- ernization such as wastewater systems, bridges, roads, and rural broadband technology. WCI continues to advocate strongly for modernization of the inland waterways lock and dam infrastructure as part of this initiative. “Together, we will ? x it. We will create the ? rst-class infrastructure our country and our people deserve,” the

President said on the Ohio River.

Let’s hope that he – and Congress – will do just that and the inland waterways can continue to deliver America’s goods to the world.

Editor’s Note

We often talk about what could happen in the event of a major inland river infrastructure calamity. Now, we know.

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