Broken Lock to Be Fixed by September 30

The goods transport and vessel crisis due to a broken lock at the Bonneville Dam along the Columbia River now has an end date. According to the Portland District of the Army Corps of Engineers the Bonneville navigation lock will return to service, allowing vessels to pass through the lock, beginning 10 a.m. Sept. 30.

"It's important to recognize the patience from our Columbia River users, who depend on this critical piece of infrastructure to run their businesses," said Portland District Commander Col. Aaron Dorf.

"This lock closure is significant, which is why our engineers, experts and contractors are working tirelessly to ensure we get the locks back in service as quickly as possible. It is not lost on anyone in the Portland District that this outage has tremendous impacts to Columbia River users," he said. "Between now and Sept. 30, our teams will be working around the clock to construct the new sill to restore Columbia River traffic."

The navigation lock was closed on Thursday, Sept. 5 after lock operators detected problems with the lock during operation.

Engineers "dewatered" the lock Sept. 6, performed an inspection and discovered that the downstream concrete sill, a structure against which lock gates to create a water-tight seal, had cracks.

The Corps then closed the lock to vessels on the river.

According to the Portland District engineering team, the damage they observed was unusual, and the periodic inspections of the dam, last performed January 2017, did not reveal any abnormalities.

Work on the lock will include demolition, drilling holes for rebar, forming the new sill structure and allowing time for the concrete to cure.

Northwest Grain Growers CEO Chris Peha said the closure of the Bonneville Dam is not affecting his growers directly as NWGG is absorbing the transportation breakdown by utilizing the newly built shuttle loader in Endicott, WA. He said they have also made arrangements with their exporters to address shipping needs. This breakdown, Peha said, "Is all a part of doing business along the river."

The 110-car shuttle loader in Endicott, was completed in November 2018, with RailWorks Northwest as contractor and Washington State Department of Transportation providing $1 million in funding. The new rail line connects to the new grain elevators that were built on the site, including seven new shipping tanks and a half-million-bushel tank, bringing their total storage on site to more than three million bushels.

Despite Northwest Grain Growers' work-arounds, Scott Clemens, Pacific Northwest Waterways Communications Director, defined clear cut impacts related to the closure: "Barge line representatives say that over 100,000 lbs. of product are stranded above Bonneville Dam, and at least one terminal downriver says it may be difficult to fill orders beyond about Sept. 20. We are also hearing from upriver ports that there will be serious impacts from the loss of river cruise visits; one port estimates over 1,500 cruise boat passengers will not visit because they can't get there, causing a loss of at least $500,000 in revenue to the community."

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Portland District is posting information about this outage at https://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/Locations/Columbia-River/BonnevilleLockStatus/, and on their Facebook feed at http://www.facebook.com/PortlandCorps