By CHRISTINE HAINES
When Locks and Dam 3 at Elizabeth is demolished four or five years from now, it will create the longest navigable pool on the Monongahela River at just over 30 miles long.
“When we remove the locks and dam at Elizabeth, the water level in the pool will change by 3.1 feet,” said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Steve Frost.
In anticipation of that lowering, the corps is currently dredging the channel between Charleroi and Elizabeth to maintain the nine-foot deep, 300-foot-wide channel required for commercial navigation.
Two large dredging rigs can be seen in the Monongahela River at Webster now that the leaves are off the trees.
“We expect that dredging will run through April 1, 2020, when we have to dismantle the operation for fish spawning. We will start up again July 1, 2020, and continue until April 1, 2021,” Frost said. “We have two dredging operators in operation right now and they are working double shifts.”
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