WEBVTT

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My name is Jim Cook . I'm a project

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manager . I've been with the ST Paul

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District of the Army Corps of Engineers

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for about a year . Now , with this

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project , we are upgrading the support

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system on which the M gates hang . The

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M gates are the lock systems which

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allow us to move river traffic up and

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down the river . We enable the

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transport of bulk commodities , grain ,

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concrete things that we can move up and

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down the river by barge far less

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expensively than by truck or by train .

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So the timing for this project , we

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started , the engineers started design

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work for some of the components that

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are getting installed . Now , we

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started that work in July , very

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deliberate timeline because there's a

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narrow window in which we could do this

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work . In order to install these

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components , we had to essentially

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disable the lock , something that we're

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not going to do during the navigation

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business season , of course . And so we

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had to do it during the winter time

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when the river itself is impassable to

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barge traffic that gave us a window to

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start construction in December . And we

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need to be done by early to mid March

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in time for the first barge to work its

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way up .