14 News, The Tri-State's News and Weather Leader-Markland Locks fail at crucial time

Markland Locks fail at crucial time

By Nathan Ryder - bio | email | Twitter
Posted by Noah Stubbs - email

GALLATIN CO., KY (WFIE) - There's a bottleneck on the Ohio River that's delaying barge traffic at a crucial time, the fall harvest.

Every year more than 200 million tons of grain, coal, fuel, minerals and other goods are moved up and down the Ohio River.

One of 20 essential river locks is crippling the waterway so much, officials have likened it to sitting in a traffic jam for 9 hours.

The bottleneck is occurring at the Markland Locks near Louisville.

It slows to a crawl following the failure of the lock's heavy iron gates.

"These gates for lack of a better term blew out and failed," US Army Corps of Engineer Col. Keith Landry said. 

The Markland Lock is running barge traffic through a smaller, auxiliary lock.

It now takes a normal 15 barge tow, three times longer to make its way through, a process that used to take just a few hours taking 24 to 48 hours to complete.

"I think in terms of availability and commodities energy prices going up, a long term catastrophic shut down of the locks would be very significant," Kentucky Rep. Geoff Davis said. "Frankly this is the cheapest form of commerce that we have to move heavy goods."

Economically speaking, the failure of the Markland Locks couldn't come at a worse time.

It's harvest time.

The corn is ready to be cut off the stalk.

Soybeans are ready to be cut out of the field and now farmers have to find a way to get their grains out of the farm field.

Farm fields provide over 40 million bushels of grain.

This winter, wheat and corn move to the banks of the Ohio River at the port of Mt. Vernon and onto a barge where it's off to market.

"It's a serious concern for our ports as well as the industries that operate in our ports," Dir. Port of Mt. Vernon Phil Wilzbacher said.

A similar situation happened in 2004, costing businesses at the port of Mt. Vernon half a million dollars.

But concerns are far reaching.

Combines are already on the march through area fields as farmers kick their fall harvests into high gear.

"Within the next 60 to 90 days through this area on the Ohio River, probably half of the total volume of grain will move during this time," Wilzbacher said.

From that, grain that ends up on your table, to steel used in consumer goods, to coal burned for your lights, failure of the Markland Locks could eventually hit your wallet.

For every 15 barge tow you typically see being moved on the river, it would take nearly 900 large semi-truck loads to move the same amount of goods.

Port officials say the whole lock system is extremely fragile.

Five out of 20 locks on the Ohio have already exceeded their expected life design.

Five more will age out in 10 years.

There's still no timetable for repair of the Markland Lock.

©2009 WFIE. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.