12 Sep 2016

Mississippi River Locks and Dams 3–10 Sheet Pile Installation at Auxiliary Locks

Locks and Dams 3 through 10 have auxiliary chambers. Each auxiliary chamber has only a single set of miter gates that could pass shallow draft navigation traffic if the lock chamber was out of operation and the upstream and downstream pools were equalized. At each site, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers only installed one set of miter gates. An auxiliary lock chamber was never authorized by Congress, which would have included a second set of miter gates. Since installation, the auxiliary emergency gates have never been used, and the gate operating machinery was never installed.