Contrary to appearances, barge not really stuck on Allegheny River dam in Natrona
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Earlier this week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Pittsburgh received calls about a runaway barge hung up on the Allegheny River’s Lock and Dam No. 4 in Harrison.
Sure enough, a 195-foot-long barge was on the dam, but it was strategically placed there for an important mission: to inspect the old, fixed-crest dam that opened in 1927.
Inspecting a dam requires divers to walk on the river bottom to check the integrity of the structure, said Mark Ivanisin, the Army Corps’ supervisory operations specialist for the Allegheny River.
“Without that barge diverting the water, it makes it impossible for divers to be there because the turbulence is so great,” he said.
Ivanisin said the use of a barge in such a way is uncommon.
That wasn’t lost on a boater who happened to come upon the Corps operation Tuesday.
Billy Andrews of Avonmore was returning from a six-day boat trip to the Greene Cove Yacht Club in Greene County along the Monongahela River on Tuesday.
When Andrews rounded a bend in the Allegheny with Lock and Dam No. 4 in view, he said, “I had to blink and rub my eyes.”
There was a barge against the dam that at first he thought might have broken loose. But he reasoned the water was not that high for such chaos.
A boater for 15 years, Andrews is a supporter of the Allegheny River Development Corp., which works with the Army Corps to keep the locks in Armstrong County open. He is generally aware of the Army Corps’ maintenance of the locks and dams.
But on Tuesday, he spoke to lock personnel, as he had to wait two hours to lock through, discovering more about the unusual Army Corps operation. Then Andrews got to lock through with a Corps boat with divers.
“Nobody gets to see that,” he said.