By Justin Fenton
Enquirer staff writer

The anticipated two-week shutdown of an Ohio River lock could last up to four times longer if more damage is found, and local businesses that depend on the river will be watching as work begins Monday.

Workers must fix a crack in the 45-year-old steel gates of the McAlpine lock in Louisville.

Last year, a scheduled three-week repair job on an Ohio River lock in Greenup, Ky., revealed structural problems that pushed work there to eight weeks. Unlike at McAlpine, that lock was still passable.

David Weekly, chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Huntington, W.Va., district navigation planning center who worked on the Greenup project, told the trade journal Platt's Metals Week last month that a similar scenario could play out at McAlpine.

"It could be that the closure lasts up to eight weeks," said Weekly, who was out of his office this week and unavailable for comment. "The gates are very old."

Pete Frick, operations manager for locks and dams in the Corps' Louisville District, said he is confident that extra repairs won't be necessary.

If extra work is needed, it will probably take another two weeks, he said.

"We felt it was in good shape the last time we were able to look at it underwater in 1999," Frick said. "We're prepared for any contingency, but chances are very low it will run over the two weeks scheduled."

Effect on business

Anything longer than two weeks would be crippling for some businesses. A survey of 74 companies that use the Ohio River by the Waterways Council last month found that 24 expect a "severe" or "heavy" effect on their business from the two-week delay, including cutbacks in production and employment, or high costs for alternative transportation.

"It's going to have an economic impact on the shippers as well as the companies that provide the transportation service," said W.N. Whitlock, president and chief operating officer of American Commercial Lines in Jeffersonville, Ind.

Locks serve as stairways that allow boats and barges to navigate the 981-mile-long waterway's changing elevation. About 140,000 tons of goods pass through McAlpine lock daily.

Workers will drain tens of millions of gallons from the 1,200-foot-long and 110-foot-wide lock, a process that will take two or three days. Inspectors will then check the gates, and workers will weld together the cracks and insert metal plates to reinforce corners of the lock's doors.

Whitlock dismissed suggestions the repairs could take more than a month.

"You're talking about people who are not very close to the situation. And those folks are always going to give you the most guarded answer," he said.

River dependence

But staff at aluminum maker Ormet Corp.'s plant in Hannibal, Ohio, are watching the length of the closure. The McAlpine repairs forced the shutdown of one of its four production lines at the Monroe County plant and the layoffs of 130 employees for at least three months.

Ormet spokeswoman Laurie Leonard said the company couldn't predict whether or when it would reopen the production line while the lock's reopening was up in the air.

"If the closure were to last more than two weeks, and if we ran out of alumina, it could endanger the whole operation," she said.

The Waterways study also cited the coal industry as being hit particularly hard. Coal accounts for 500,000 tons of traffic over a typical two-week period. If the closure were to last longer than two weeks, there could be cutbacks in producation at power plants at a time of peak demand. Transporting coal by railroad is not possible since the power plants are configured to receive coal by water.

Middletown-based AK Steel doesn't expect any disruptions in its business after making heavier shipments in the weeks leading up to the closure and making other arrangements with truck and rail cars.

AK vice president for government and public relations Alan McCoy said the Corps has indicated more time could be necessary, but he's not worried.

"We understand that the repairs are scheduled for two weeks with some allowance for some time for unforeseen work to be done that they can't determine at this point. That's what we're basing our plans on," he said.

"You can throw a hypothetical out there, [but] we deal with maintenance issues on critical operations every day and understand the value of having contingency plans."

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E-mail jfenton@enquirer.com