Project Description and Background
Opened in 1933, Lockport Lock & Dam is 35 miles downstream of T.J O’Brien Lock & Dam. The facility is a unit of the Inland Waterway Navigation System and is one of eight such facilities between Chicago and Versailles, Illinois. The lock is 110 feet wide by 600 feet long. Maximum vertical lift is 42.0 feet; the average lift is 39 feet. It averages 22.5 minutes to fill the lock chamber and 15 minutes to empty.
The Lockport Dam consists of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) lock, powerhouse and associated controlling works. The MWRD, through Congressional action, transferred the maintenance responsibilities of the substructures and support structures to the Corps in the early 1980s for the roughly forty-five-foot-high embankment, controlling works, powerhouse substructures, and all pool retention structures. The Corps controls the lock; however, has no ownership of the controlling works. A major rehabilitation of the lock was completed in 2017 at a cost of $150,280,294.
Project Authorization
Rivers and Harbors Acts of 1927 & 1930