Over the past work season, a lot of progress has been made on the New Soo Lock Project.

However, now that we’re in the colder, snowier days, continued work will be postponed for safety concerns.

“Especially with everybody operating off of barges its hard to keep them clean throughout the day and throughout the night,” said Ryan Berkompas, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project engineer. “Cold weather becomes a problem trying to place concrete so its better if we just call it for the year.”

Phase one of three of the project involves deepening the channel 30 feet to accommodate larger vessels.

“New modern day ships–they’re going down below that 25, 26 feet that we had so we need to get it to 30 feet so they have the space to maneuver through the canal,” said Spencer Donaldson, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers  project manager.

To get to that level, a lot of material has had to be removed from the lakebed.

“Approximately about 150,000 cubic yards of material have been removed this season by the phase one contractor which brings it about to 290,000 total for the whole contract at this point with an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 left,” said Berkompas.

Phase two is installing coffer cells that will rehabilitate the approach walls.

“To do that they put in what’s called a template which is a skeleton of the coffer cells, just metal I-beams, at which time after they put it into the water, they place piles around that coffer cell and fill it with both aggregate and tremie concrete.”

Phase three, creating the lock chamber, should be in progress when work begins again in the Spring.

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