Photo By Carrie Fox | The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, removed a spare set of miter...... read more read more
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, removed a spare set of miter gates, constructed for the Davis and Sabin Locks, from the St. Marys River this summer. The miter gates were hidden in the river for over 80 years and weighed about 350,000 pounds each.
The gates were strategically stored downriver of the Soo Locks facility and out of the federal navigation channel in the 1940s during World War II. The purpose of storing the gates downriver was to have a spare set of replacement gates for either lock if the installed gates were damaged.
“The Davis and Sabin locks were built in 1914 and 1919 and at the time were the largest locks in the world,” said Chief Park Ranger Michelle Briggs.
As part of the national defense strategy during World War II, the MacArthur Lock was built, thousands of soldiers were stationed in Sault Ste. Marie to protect the Soo Locks and spare miter gates were built and stored off-site. Torpedo nets were installed at the Soo Locks and sandbagging of critical areas was completed.
The protection of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal and the St. Marys River waterway was the only activity in the Central Defense Command during World War II that involved the use/stationing/deployment/assignment of Army combat units.
“The Soo Locks were critical to the wartime effort and ensured the passage of taconite (iron ore) from the active mines near Lake Superior to the lower Great Lakes for steel production,” said Soo Project Office Operations Manager LeighAnn Ryckeghem.
Physical defense of the Soo Locks and St. Marys River included: 702nd Battalion, Military Police Battalion; 39th Barrage Balloon Battalion; 100th Coast Artillery (AA) Regiment; Canadian 40th Antiaircraft Battery (Heavy); 131st Infantry Regiment; 266 Aircraft observation post in Northern Ontario; Construction of RACO and Kinross Army Airfields; Construction of six Early Warning Radar Stations at Grand Marais, Mich., and Kapuskasing, Cochrane, Hearst, Armstrong and Nakina, Ontario; Establishment of the Central Air Defense Zone extending up to 150 miles from the waterway; Establishment of the Sault Ste. Marie Military District; and a U.S. Coast Guard member was placed on every lake freighter.
“The spare gates have reached their end of life with the Sabin Lock being demolished to make way for the New Lock at the Soo and the Davis Lock being filled in, said Ryckeghem. “The Corps of Engineers environmental mission focuses on good stewardship and restoration of natural resources across our nation. The spare Davis and Sabin Lock gates were removed and recycled to restore the river bottom to a natural state.”
Funding in the amount of $975,000 was received in fiscal year 2024 to remove the Davis and Sabin Lock gates.
“The Soo Project Office, SPO, is actively working on design and procurement of a new heavy lift crane barge to replace the Gatelifter Paul Bunyan,” said St. Marys River Section Chief Justin Proulx. “Without a crane barge large enough to lift the gates from the river bottom, other methods had to be explored to execute the work requirement. The process of removing the gates was not an easy task and required some extraordinary measures.”
Several barges and vessels from the SPO’s St. Marys River Section were used to remove the gates including a dive barge, the Harvey crane barge, the Nicolet derrick barge, a custom assembled jack-up barge, an empty deck barge for receiving the gates, the Owen M. Fredrick tug, and several small work boats.
To remove the gates, divers and a survey team were used to find the exact locations of each gate. Divers, using a small dredge pump, and the Nicolet derrick barge with a clamshell bucket were used to remove the clay, silt and overburden, material that settles on the bottom of the river, from the gates. Divers went back down to cut access holes in the four corners of each gate big enough to fit large metal chains through for lift points and rigging.
Once all rigging was in place, the jack-up barge, used as a self-elevated platform with strand jacks located on the deck and made up of 12 modular pontoons with 80-foot jacking spuds, was positioned over the gate. The four-strand jack cables were lowered down to the gates through moonpools on the jack-up barge. Divers then proceeded to hook up the rigging on the gate corners to the strand jack cables. The four stand jacks combined have a lifting capacity of 616,000 pounds. Together, they lifted the gate from the bottom of the river, breaking the suction from the clay each gate was embedded in. (Note:
When the gate was jacked up to the bottom of the jack-up barge, it had to move with assistance from the Nicolet derrick barge to a location in the river nearby with a hard bottom. Once in place and the Nicolet and Harvey positioned, the jack-up barge began jacking itself and the gate, in two-feet increments, into the air high enough to position the receiving barge under the gate. The gate was then lowered and positioned on the receiving barge and brought back to the SPO boat basin east of the Soo Locks.
“The mission went better than expected with no major surprises thanks to the continuous input from our experienced employees and support from SPO’s excellent equipment manufacturers and rental supply base, said St. Marys River Section Engineering Technician Theodore Clark.
The gates were both cut up into small enough sections to be lifted by a crane and disposed at a local metal recycling facility.
The first gate was removed from the St. Marys River the week of June 10 and the second gate the week of July 8. A Notice to Navigation Interest went out on June 3 detailing the work boundaries and U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Rules and Regulations for lighting the area during dark.
About 40 SPO employees worked on the project from beginning to end.
“The work completed by the great team at the SPO really continues to demonstrate the outstanding skills and talents that keep the Soo Locks running every day. We had participation from every work group at the facility to make this happen. The creativity in engineering a solution to meet the need and the safe and flawless execution of a very complex plan really exemplified the U.S. Army Engineer Regiment’s motto, ‘Essayons!’ The team did more than try, they delivered,” said Proulx.
Due to the gates being stored on the bottom of a freshwater river for nearly 80 years, they were in fair condition.
| Date Taken: | 08.21.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 08.21.2024 16:35 |
| Story ID: | 479171 |
| Location: | SAULT STE. MARIE, MICHIGAN, US |
| Web Views: | 212 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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