Olmsted Locks and Dam

The Olmsted Locks and Dam is a locks and concrete dam project currently under construction on the Ohio River at river mile 964.4 to replace Locks and Dam 52 and 53 to greatly reduce tow and barge delays. The locks are located about 17 miles upstream from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at Olmsted, Illinois.The project is both the largest and the most expensive inland waterway project ever undertaken in the United States.HistoryThe US Congress first approved a $775 million budget for the project in 1988. The lock chambers, completed in 2002, are 110ft wide and 1200ft long.According to the US Army Corps of Engineers, the new dam and locks will reduce passage time to under one hour with the new system. Due to queuing at Lock and Dam Number 52 and Lock and Dam Number 53, it can take cargo traffic 15 to 20 hours each to transit the locks the Olmsted complex is intended to replace.When initiated the complex was projected to cost $775 million. As of November 2016, the estimated cost of the project is approaching $3 billion.While the project was initially scheduled for completion in 1998, by 2016 it was projected to become operational between 2018 and 2020. The New York Times reports that, according to the United States Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal agency responsible for maintaining navigation on the USA's rivers, the delay in completing the lock complex costs $640 million per year, due to delays at the aging locks at Lock and Dam Number 52 and Lock and Dam Number 53, which it will replace.