LOCKPORT LOCK AND DAM—Water levels rise or sink the equivalent of a four-story building each time the lock channel here lifts or lowers mammoth barges laden with coal or other cargo through this tricky stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Lockmaster Dave Nolen knows every turn and every ripple along this 2.6-mile section of waterway flanked by canal walls built in the 1890s. That makes him a very worried man.

"We have 39 feet of water that we are holding off Joliet," Nolen said, pointing downstream to downtown Joliet as he stood Thursday on a deck overlooking the watertight gates at one end of the lock.

"People in Joliet probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night if they knew how devastating the flooding would be because of a breach," he said, raising his voice to be heard above the roar of 25 million gallons of swirling water being released downstream after a barge traveling up-river passed through the lock.

Hidden from view behind security gates at the end of a road closed to the public, the Lockport lock illustrates the country's decaying waterway infrastructure. Tests at the Lockport facility show that water is escaping through the deteriorated concrete walls, boiling up in a nearby creek and posing a flooding danger to the adjacent Des Plaines River Valley.

Nationally, an estimated $12 billion is needed to bring the system to a state of good repair and replace antiquated locks and dams, according to the Waterways Council, a public advocacy group made up of companies that ship products by barge.

A report scheduled for release Monday in Chicago concluded that Illinois' waterways have been neglected too long, threatening the safety of communities and the future of a vital economic highway for the state. Barges in and around Illinois each year carry more than 110 million tons of cargo valued at $16 billion, the report said.

A major break in one of the dikes or embankments along the roughly 20 locks on the Illinois, Mississippi or Ohio Rivers would cause catastrophic flooding, said the report, "Waterways in Crisis," by the Illinois Chamber of Commerce Infrastructure Council.

"Additionally, the failure of just one of the locks along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal would require nearly 50,000 tons of cargo each day to be transported on the state's highways rather than via barge," the report said. "That translates into nearly 2,000 additional semitrailer trucks, a line that would stretch from the Chicago Loop to Naperville."

The lock and dam structure in Lockport is headed toward uncontrolled seepage, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The corps would be forced to shut down the lock if the situation worsens before funding is secured, about $134 million, for a major rehabilitation. So far about $47 million has been appropriated.

Closing the lock would mean that coal destined for power plants, road salt for streets in the six-county area, construction materials and other commodities would be off-loaded onto trucks, adding to traffic congestion and pollution.

It would take 870 large semitrailer trucks—extending 111/2 miles bumper to bumper—to handle the cargo capacity of one 15-barge tow that is a quarter-mile long and pushed by one boat, according to the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Repairs on the approach dike at Lockport have been completed, but funding has not been secured to rehabilitate the concrete canal wall that was built in the late 19th Century and repaired during the Great Depression and again in 1989, said Andrew Barnes, a project manager with the Army Corps Rock Island District.

"It's shovel-ready," Barnes said, using the buzzword that means the major work needed on the lock qualifies for funding under the federal stimulus legislation aimed at putting people to work and boosting the economy.

The corps recently assessed the condition of the waterway immediately upstream of the lock and assigned it the second-worst risk classification on a five-level scale, said Steve Russell, a project manager with the corps.

"Very limited advance warning time would be provided" to nearby residents and businesses in the event of a breach, "adding to the risk potential for loss of life," said a corps report issued last year.

At a time that billions of dollars in new funding are being directed toward revitalizing infrastructure and reducing U.S. unemployment, waterways officials are optimistic that their time will come.

"Modernizing the nation's waterways provides an incredible return on the dollar," said Jim Farrell, executive director of the chamber's infrastructure council. "It's a relatively minor cost compared to fixing O'Hare [International Airport] or modernizing the rapid transit system in Chicago."

A single barge has the cargo capacity equivalent to 15 jumbo hopper freight cars or 58 large semitrailer trucks, according to transportation experts.

The federal stimulus package provided the Army Corps of Engineers $4.6 billion, which would be used toward a range of purposes. The bulk of the funding needed to bring the waterways system to a state of good repair and expand the capacity of locks is authorized by Congress under the Water Resources Development Act.

"The problem our industry faces in terms of public support is that we are out of sight, out of mind," said Cornel Martin, president and chief executive officer of the Waterways Council. "People don't know that much of the coal that gets to the coal-fired power plants travels by barge, along with steel, grains, chemicals and petroleum products.

"But we have to be encouraged that there is now a focus on infrastructure."

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