Pittsburgh District Employee Day
Col. Nicholas Melin, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District commander, embraces a bucket of Monongahela River water dumped over his head as a show of morale during an Employee Day celebration at the John P. Murtha Locks and Dam in Monessen, Pennsylvania, Oct. 3, 2024. District leaders recognized individual achievements of employees and supervisors with an awards ceremony during Employee Day and celebrated the collective work it took to complete the construction project and upgrades at the navigation facility in Monessen, Pennsylvania, Oct. 3, 2024. Planning for the new lock chamber and control tower at John P. Murtha began in the 1990s and took 20 years of construction to complete. The project modernized the facility by replacing an older, smaller chamber with a new one measuring 720 feet long by 84 feet wide. The construction also included a control tower with state-of-the-art systems and the potential to remote-control other facilities in the future. The new chamber expands the facility’s capacity to support commercial navigation throughout the region and the nation. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District photo by Michel Sauret)