Columbia River grain shipments return to normal after repairs at John Day Dam

Published 11:00 am Tuesday, August 9, 2022

Barges are once again moving normally along the Columbia River and through the John Day Dam lock after engineers completed repairs by Friday, Aug. 5, according to a news release.

Travel through the lock was slowed down significantly for the better part of two weeks by a damaged guide wheel, which helps move the lock gate along concrete walls.

The John Day Dam, on the Columbia River between Arlington and The Dalles, in Oregon, features a navigational lock that allows commercial barges to continue downriver as they carry Eastern Washington’s grains and some other crops to the coast for export.

Though located a distance from Walla Walla, the slowdown at John Day Dam could be felt by grain growers in the Walla Walla Valley.

About a fifth of the nation’s commerce is shipped through the lock system, and the Columbia River is the No. 1 export gateway for wheat, barley and West Coast mineral bulk, according to a release.

Travel across the lock was put on hold for a little more than a day after the broken guide wheel was discovered Monday, July 25.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates John Day Dam, was able to re-open the lock to river traffic on July 26 by using a floating bulkhead. However, the bulkhead had to be moved with a tug boat, doubling the 45-minute process it normally takes to pass through.

“Commercial river users need reliability and predictability, so our team worked very hard to get the lock fully functioning as soon as possible,” said Kym Anderson, operations division chief for Portland District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“We were also fortunate to find that most of the guide wheel components were reusable and that we only needed to replace the bushings,” Anderson continued. “Since we saw similar wear and tear on the remaining three wheels, we repaired all wheels on the upstream gate to avoid failure of those wheels.”

Guide wheels are rollers attached to each side of the 215,000-pound vertical lift gates. They maintain the alignment of the gate as the gate moves up and down through its normal range of motion during lockages.

The Portland District of the Corps typically closes its locks at Bonneville, The Dalles and John Day dams in February each year to make repairs, complete inspections and perform maintenance, according to a release, but aging infrastructure have caused unexpected outages in recent years.