Illinois Waterway Locks & Dams Rock Island District 2018 US Army Corps of Engineers® Mississippi Valley Division The 9-foot Channel Navigation Project The Upper Mississippi River – Illinois Waterway System includes 37 locks and 1,200 miles of navigable waterway in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages the 37 locks and dams on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers providing a water stairway of travel for commercial and recreational traffic from Minneapolis-St. Paul to St. Louis and from Chicago to the Mississippi River. The 866 miles of the Upper Mississippi River begin in Minneapolis, Minn., and end at the confluence of the Ohio River at Cairo, Ill. The 333 miles of the Illinois Waterway start in the Chicago Area Waterway and continue downstream to the Illinois River’s confluence with the Mississippi River at Grafton, Ill. The Illinois Waterway is composed of seven water systems: Illinois River, Des Plaines River, Chicago Sanitary and Shipping Canal, South Branch Chicago River, Cal-Sag Channel, Little Calumet River and the Calumet River. There are more than 580 manufacturing facilities, terminals, grain elevators, and docks that ship and receive tonnage in the Upper Mississippi River basin. Grains (corn and soybeans) dominate traffic on the system. Other commodities, mainly cement and concrete products, comprise the second largest group. A modern 15-barge tow transports the equivalent of 1,050 large semi-trucks (26,250 cargo tons, 875,000 bushels, or 17,325,000 gallons). In 2015, the 9-foot channel project generated an estimated $3 billion of transportation cost savings compared to its approximately $246 million operation and maintenance cost. Table of Contents Illinois River Rock Island District Thomas J. O’Brien – Chicago, Illinois Lockport – Lockport, Illinois Brandon Road – Joliet, Illinois Dresden Island – Morris, Illinois Marseilles – Marseilles, Illinois Starved Rock – Ottawa, Illinois Peoria – Creve Coeur, Illinois LaGrange – Versailles, Illinois Front Cover: (2018) A commercial tow vessel approaches the downstream gate of the Brandon Road Lock and Dam in Joliet, Illinois. Brandon Road Lock and Dam is one of eight lock and dam facilities on the Illinois Waterway managed by the Rock Island District and is located 286 miles above the confluence of the Illinois River with the Mississippi River in Grafton, Illinois. Photo by Samantha Heilig Thomas J. O’Brien Lock & Dam (Chicago, Illinois) Calumet River BUILDING STRONG ® U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS Construction: 1957-1960 Congressional District: IL-2 Description Thomas J. (T.J.) O’Brien Lock and Dam is 326.0 miles above the confluence of the Illinois River with the Mississippi river at Grafton, Illinois. It is approximately 35 miles upstream of the Lockport Lock and Dam, in the southeastern portion of Chicago. O’Brien is located at the entrance to Lake Michigan in Chicago. The facility is a unit of the Inland Waterway Navigation System and is one of eight such facilities between Chicago and Versailles, Ill. It is composed of a navigational lock, fixed dam, and controlling works. O'Brien is a low-lift sector gate lock. It provides a maximum lift of five feet for traffic passing from Lake Michigan to the Calumet River. The lock chamber is 1,000-feet long by 110-feet wide. The dam is 296.75 feet long. The controlling works consist of four large vertical slide gates (10 feet square) located near the center of the dam to regulate water flow. There are also two sets of sector gates weighing 216 tons each at both the river and lake ends. These are unique on the Illinois Waterway and; consequently, there is no need for tunnels in the lock walls. T.J. O’Brien Lock and Dam controls the movement of water between Lake Michigan and the Calumet River while maintaining navigation. The lock and dam are used for flood control and waterway flushing, and also function as components of the diversion control system. History/Significance The lock opened in 1960. The lock and dam elements of the complex were completed at a cost of $6,954,700. Annual Tonnage (20-Year Historical) Year Tons Year Tons Year Tons Year Tons 2017 4,754,787 2012 5,910,675 2007 7,294,890 2002 7,618,898 2016 4,250,588 2011 6,455,575 2006 9,479,767 2001 6,778,306 2015 4,560,643 2010 5,131,780 2005 9,048,078 2000 8,436,175 2014 5,915,856 2009 4,641,383 2004 9,674,528 1999 7,371,509 2013 5,257,864 2008 6,822,254 2003 6,975,080 1998 8,431,541 U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS – ROCK ISLAND DISTRICT CLOCK TOWER BUILDING, P.O. BOX 2004, ROCK ISLAND, IL 61204-2004 Corporate Communications Office, (309) 794-5729, www.mvr.usace.army.mil Commodity Tonnage (2017) All Units (Ferried Autos, Passengers, Railway Cars) - Coal, Lignite, and Coal Coke 137,000 Petroleum and Petroleum Products 631,700 Chemicals and Related Products 229,500 Crude Materials, Inedible, Except Fuels 1,603,600 Primary Manufactured Goods 1,766,600 Food and Farm Products 316,300 Manufactured Equipment & Machinery 66,487 Waste Material 1,500 Unknown or Not Elsewhere Classified 2,100 Vessel & Lockage Data (2017) Average Delay - Tows (Hours) 0.12 Average Processing Time (Hours) 0.22 Barges Empty 1,269 Barges Loaded 2,879 Commercial Vessels 1,523 Commercial Flotillas 1,462 Commercial Lockages/Cuts 1,462 Non-Vessel Lockages 2 Non-Commercial Vessels 57 Non-Commercial Flotillas 56 Non-Commercial Lockages/Cuts 56 Percent Vessels Delayed (%) 3 Recreational Vessels 8,205 Recreational Lockages 3,019 Total Vessels 9,785 Total Locakages/Cuts 4,539 The 9-foot Channel Navigation Project The 9-foot Channel Navigation Project includes 37 lock and dam sites (42 locks) on 1,200 river miles in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. Constructed largely in the 1930s, it extends from Minneapolis-St. Paul on the Upper Mississippi River to its confluence with the Ohio River and up the Illinois Waterway to the T.J. O’Brien Lock in Chicago. The maintenance needs of this aging infrastructure have surpassed annual operations and maintenance funding. This limited funding has adversely affected reliability of the system and has primarily resulted in a fix-as-fail strategy, with repairs sometimes requiring days, weeks or months. Depending on the nature of a failure and extent of repairs, shippers, manufacturers, consumers and commodity investors can experience major financial consequences. Additionally, today’s 1,200’-long tows must split and lock through in two operations within the Project’s 600’ chambers. This procedure doubles and triples lockage times, increases costs and wear to lock machinery, and exposes deckhands to higher accident rates. More than 580 facilities ship and receive commodities within the Project. Grains (corn and soybeans) dominate traffic; cement and concrete products are the second largest group. A modern 15-barge tow transports the equivalent of 1,050 semi-trucks (26,250 tons, 937,387 bushels of corn, or 240 rail cars). In 2016, the 9-foot channel project generated an estimated $2 billion of transportation cost savings compared to its approximately $246 million operation and maintenance cost. UPDATE: August 2018 U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS – ROCK ISLAND DISTRICT CLOCK TOWER BUILDING, P.O. BOX 2004, ROCK ISLAND, IL 61204-2004 Corporate Communications Office, (309) 794-5729, www.mvr.usace.army.mil Lockport Lock & Dam (Lockport, Illinois) Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal BUILDING STRONG ® U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS Construction: 1923-1933 Congressional District: IL-3 Description Lockport Lock and Dam is 291.0 miles above the confluence of the Illinois River with the Mississippi river at Grafton, Illinois. The complex is two miles southwest of the city of Lockport, Illinois. The lock is 110 feet wide by 600 feet long. Maximum vertical lift is 42.0 feet, the average lift is 39 feet. It averages 22.5 minutes to fill the lock chamber; 15 minutes to empty. The Lockport Dam consists of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) lock, powerhouse and associated controlling works. The MWRD, through Congressional action, transferred the maintenance responsibilities of the substructures and support structures to the Corps in the early 1980s for the roughly forty-five foot high embankment, controlling works, powerhouse substructures, and all pool retention structures. The Corps controls the lock; however, has no ownership of the controlling works. Rehabilitation of the lock was completed in 2017 at a cost of $150,280,294. History/Significance The lock opened in 1933. Lockport Lock was one of five designed and partially constructed by the state of Illinois over a period from 1923 to 1930. The complex was about 97 percent complete when construction was turned over to the federal government due to state financial difficulties. The government, by the authority of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1930, completed construction of the lock in 1933. The opening of the Lockport Lock coincided with the opening of the downstream Brandon Road, Dresden Island, Marseilles, and Starved Rock locks and dams. The total cost of the lock was $2,153,867, of which $2,020,259 was state funded and $133,608 was funded by the federal government. Annual Tonnage (20-Year Historical) Year Tons Year Tons Year Tons Year Tons 2017 12,815,138 2012 10,401,920 2007 13,507,517 2002 16,872,206 2016 11,248,909 2011 10,552,834 2006 17,248,750 2001 15,970,297 2015 11,814,590 2010 9,853,988 2005 16,929,707 2000 16,788,986 2014 12,360,010 2009 10,240,591 2004 17,341,066 1999 16,039,564 2013 9,889,403 2008 12,460,893 2003 15,310,005 1998 16,474,962 U.S.