Daily Athenaeum (West Virginia
University student paper)
16 July 1997
by Sarah Wendell, Staff Writer
Those of you who enjoy the upstream waters of the Monongahela River may have reason to be concerned about gaining access to the upper Mon in the future.
Within the next couple of years, recreational activity on the river south of Morgantown will be restricted due to a reduction of the hours of operation of the Morgantown lock, and of the Hildebrand and Opekiska locks near Fairmont.
This future reduction has been justified by a steady decrease in commercial tonnage passing through the three upstream locks on the river.
Some Morgantown residents are worried about the impact restricted lock hours will have on river traffic and recreational activities further upstream. Bunny Javins, a resident of Morgantown and owner of three large paddle wheel boats, feels the restriction of lock hours will be a detriment to the area’s tourism.
She cited the importance of the development of the riverfront property in Monongalia and Marion Counties and its dependence on river traffic. If the locks are not open for public use, the effort made to develop this property and bring people into the area will be hindered, she said.
At the present time, the Morgantown Lock and Dam runs on a 24-hour basis, but the Opekiska and Hildebrand Locks and Dams, operate for only eight hours each day. Their twenty-four hour service was restricted in 1985, according to Cecil Rice, Lockmaster of the Morgantown pool.
The low commercial tonnage locked through these two sites, mainly because of a fall in the coal industry, could no longer support around-the-clock operation, Rice said. The Morgantown lock and dam is now headed toward a similar fate.
The US Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains the locks and dams of inland waterways across the country, determines the level of operation of each lock by how much commercial tonnage passes through the system. Recreational traffic is not a factor in this decision.
"The Corps support for inland navigation was authorized by Congress just for commercial navigation, such as tow-boats and barges, in the early 1800s," said Richard Dowling, spokesperson for the Pittsburgh branch -- the lock and dam systems of the Monongahela fall under their authority -- of the Army Corps of Engineers.
"The Corps must constantly evaluate the efficiency of its facilities, and the locks that are the least used are clearly the ones we have to consider reducing the operations of," Dowling said.
The 1996 report of statistics for the Morgantown Lock and Dam indicates that a total of 369,750 commercial tons passed through the lock last year. This number, in comparison with the nearly three million tons moved in 1987 during the coal boom, indicates the likelihood of operation reduction.
"There is clear economic justification to consider such reductions in the future," said Dowling in reference to the Morgantown lock, as well as the Hildebrand and Opekiska locks.
Rice, however, maintained that the reductions proposed for these locks would not greatly cut back on spending. They would only serve to restrict the hours in which people could use the river.
"A maintenance crew would still be needed to keep the locks working smoothly, and, right now, only one lock operator works each shift," Rice said.
Security guards will also be needed to guard the locks and dams during the time the locks are not in operation. If the Morgantown lock were reduced to eight hours a day, seven days a week, and the Hildebrand and Opekiska locks were reduced to operation five days a week, few shifts would be eliminated. Yet, travel would be greatly reduced, Rice said.
He observed this trend when the hours of the Hildebrand and Opekiska locks were initially reduced in 1985.
Before this change, Rice felt that more recreational vehicles passed through the locks.
"Less people are passing through because they don’t want to be trapped on the river when the Hildebrand and Opekiska locks close for the day," he said.
"I would like to see these locks stay open" for the general public to use, Rice said.
According to Spokesman Dowling, there also is a possibility that the Morgantown , Hildebrand and Opekiska systems will be closed to commercial and recreational traffic altogether. They would then be operated by remote control from Point Marion, a lock near the Pennsylvania border. However, "there is no change in operating hours or services planned for this year on the Monongahela River," Dowling said.
"We understand the concerns of the recreational boaters and the tourism industry that depend on the locks," but ". . . the Corps must spend the taxpayers’ money as efficiently as we can within the districts," said Dowling.
Rice feels the federal government should take the public’s recreational needs into consideration when spending their tax dollars, but Dowling pointed out that tourism is not a concern in the control of inland waterways.
"Recreational use is not part of the Corps mission as directed by Congress. In order for us to formally consider recreational traffic on an equal basis with commercial traffic," Dowling said. (Strimbeck comment - apparently last paragraph is missing some content).