Photo By Kelcy Hanson | Matt Thurman, Mississippi River Maintenance Section Chief, educating students on the...... read more read more
Getting the chance to view the bedrock bottom of the Mississippi River is a rare opportunity but standing on it became a once in a lifetime experience for some visitors this past winter. In January, the Rock Island District hosted a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) event where students toured the inside of the dewatered lock chamber at Locks and Dam 15 in Rock Island, Illinois. The dewatering process, something only performed every 30 years or so, was necessary to perform scheduled maintenance and repairs and to allow for inspections of areas normally found under water.
During the event, local college and high school educators and their students came from around the Quad Cities area to take part in the tours. Maintenance staff and park rangers from the Mississippi River Project were on hand to guide the groups through various stations where they learned about navigation on the Mississippi River, the importance of the locks and dams for maintaining navigable water levels, and the extensive amount of work involved in operating and maintaining the nation’s critical inland waterway navigation system.
Matt Thurman, Mississippi River Maintenance Section Chief, located in the Mississippi Project Office, explained to students the importance of doing routine inspections while the lock is dewatered.
“The locks are normally underwater 24/7/365 so we are unable to fully inspect the locks thoroughly unless they are dewatered. All aspects of the lock will undergo inspections while the chamber is empty.”
In addition to routine inspections, concrete sill beams were installed in the base of the lock to provide full-width support for the temporary walls, known as bulkheads, used during dewatering efforts. The locks, which were built in the early 1930s, were not originally designed for full-width bulkhead placement and are now being retrofitted to make maintenance easier in the future.
During the event, tour participants viewed maintenance employees working on replacement projects including bubbler system plumbing, miter gate anchorages and lock wall concrete. For some, the tour of the facility was the first exposure to lock operations. For others, the behind-the-scenes look at repairs was an opportunity to get often wondered questions answered.
“I have fished for many years next to these locks and have always wondered what all the bubbles were,” said Ben Carter, Earth Science teacher, Mediapolis School District. “Until walking down here, I never thought to think it was a massive compressor pushing air to move debris.”
Due to the uneven surface of the riverbed in the bottom of the lock, much of the grinding, cutting and replacement of concrete on the walls was done from a suspended man-basket hanging from a crane. Seeing and learning about these logistical challenges was an eye-opening experience for many on the tours.
“Today has been a fantastic opportunity for our students,” said Carter. “These kids have a lot of questions, they live next to the largest river in North America, and they don’t fully understand what the government has to do in order to control the river. It’s pretty impressive.”
Marcus Hall from the North Scott School District teaches an Iowa Jobs for America’s Graduates class made up of junior and senior high students who are exploring different job opportunities by visiting employers and looking for something that piques their interest.
“Prior to coming today, I had some students interested in welding and manufacturing, and this was the perfect opportunity to show them some potential jobs that they could use those skills in a government setting,” said Hall. “It is nice to expose them to a setting where they can see employees working on a large-scale project. We were also able to bring some female students today and they were able to be exposed to female park rangers and the public affairs photographer to show that the Corps of Engineers also hires individuals that have other degrees besides engineering.”
Over the course of the two-day event, a total of 230 students and educators braved the cold to visit the bottom of the lock chamber at Locks and Dam 15. The unique opportunity to visit the moonscape-like riverbed and stand in the space where 30 feet of water normally flows left participants with a new found appreciation for those working to maintain the essential waterway system.
| Date Taken: | 05.02.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 05.02.2022 16:20 |
| Story ID: | 419774 |
| Location: | ROCK ISLAND, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: | 260 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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