The Dominion Post
July 25, 2000
By Evelyn Ryan
If at some point the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' budget doesn't include enough money to keep the Opekiska and Hildebrand locks running, would it just bolt the locks open and leave?
No way, a Corps spokesman said.
Since local boaters met with Army Corps representatives about recreational concerns on the upper Monongahela River, a persistent rumor has said the Corps would do just that.
"There is absolutely no truth to the rumor," spokesman John Reed said.
"We have no specific plans in place to abandon the locks or to change the lock staffing at this point in time."
The district's budget has enough money to keep the locks open next fiscal year but, Reed warned, he couldn't predict what Congress will do in the future.
"We can't guarantee we will continue to operate the locks forever if there is no commercial traffic," Reed said.
But the Corps has no specific plans covering how to take a lock and dam out of operation permanently, he said. If such an action is contemplated, he said, it would have to be evaluated in terms of what that closing would do to the area.
"It would be a long, drawn-out process," he believes. "Certainly public input would be part of that."
Public input can make a difference.
Boaters on the Mon and Allegheny rivers have been complaining that the locks aren't open late enough for them to take advantage of the upper reaches of the two rivers.
"We've made some adjustments for events," Reed said. "We're getting some positive responses for that."
On July 4th weekend, Opekiska and Hildebrand locks were open until midnight for boaters. But the decision wasn't made until just before the weekend, and a lot of boaters had other plans and couldn't take advantage of it.
"It's not a way we can operate all the time," Reed said, "but certainly we can for special events."
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction over navigable waters, like the Monongahela Rivers, with an emphasis on helping river commerce, providing flood control and maintaining river flow.
The three West Virginia locks and dams are navigational facilities, built to help commercial traffic travel the Mon. By law, the Corps' establishes lock hours based on commercial traffic.
The Morgantown Lock opened in 1952, while Hildebrand opened in 1964 and Opekiska in 1966.
But commercial traffic has dropped drastically on the upper Mon, and Opekiska and Hildebrand are only open between 8 a.m.-4 p.m.
Congress finances Corps' operations. The district office sends its budget in March for the following fiscal year. This means the budget sent this past March is being considered for the October 2001 fiscal year.
In recent years, rivers have also become the center of a different form of economic development and commerce -- recreation. But the Corps' mandate does not cover recreation, something it makes clear in meetings.
A number of local boaters have organized the Upper Monongahela Committee for Better Boating to promote recreation on inland waters. Their goal is to build a campaign that will prompt Congress to add "recreation" to the Corps' mandate.