Aging locks and dams

Infrastructure plan must include rivers

Long before highways or railroads connected Pittsburgh to the rest of the country, the city grew because of its main mode of transportation — its rivers. Those waterways continue to provide the means of moving millions of tons of commodities annually, but that could change drastically unless renovations are made to the deteriorating locks and dams in the region.

The country desperately needs an infrastructure plan that not only funds repairs to the nation’s highways and bridges but includes the aging locks and dams used for commercial river traffic. If not, the risk of catastrophe along the rivers continues to grow.

Instead, the recent budget proposed by the White House zeroes out any funding for construction and repairs of locks and dams. That’s unacceptable and Congress must step in during the budget process and assure funding essential to waterway transportation.

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, but little real progress has been made in the past three years. Even more discouraging was the budget proposal that included a crippling one-two punch of higher annual fees on commercial river operators — an increase of nearly $180 million — combined with absolutely no federal funding for construction projects along inland waterways.

Why federal funding for locks and dams would go from hundreds of millions to zero has many transportation officials baffled, but local congressional representatives have made it clear there is bipartisan support for restoring construction funds.

Mr. Trump has been inconsistent on funding for locks and dams, having reduced spending on projects in the past while surprising officials with increased funding in other years. Last year he proposed, and Congress approved, full funding to completion for the Monongahela River locks and dams project, expected to be completed by 2023.

Zero funding this year, however, leaves the Upper Ohio Navigation project in limbo. The three locks and dams there — Emsworth, Dashields and Montgomery — are the oldest locks on the Ohio River, having been built between 1919 and 1936. The need for renovation is rapidly reaching the critical stage. A recent study of the Montgomery locks and dam determined that without repairs, the probability of catastrophic failure will be nearly 50% by 2028.

Federal funds totaling $7.7 million were recently released to provide preconstruction engineering and design for the three locks projects, with most of the money targeted for Montgomery. What’s needed now is committed funding for the construction phase, which could total $1.8 billion for the three locations and take years to complete.

Mary Ann Bucci, executive director of the Port of Pittsburgh Commission, said the nearly 200 miles of river her agency oversees accounts for nearly 30 million tons of commodities a year moving through the Pittsburgh region. She said it would take about $400 million a year to continue construction projects nationwide, with funding split between the federal government and commercial operators — who pay into the Inland Waterways Trust Fund through a 29-cents-a-gallon fuel tax.

Commercial river traffic is critical to many local industries along the three rivers. Congress and the administration need to recognize the importance of maintaining the locks and dams and provide the necessary funding to keep them operating.