Muskingum River Lock Repairs

ROKEBY LOCK- The Muskingum River has a proud history of providing a reliable waterway navigation system that features a series of dams with hand operated locks. 

Ruhlin Company Project Superintendent Walt Whitmyer described the efforts that the Ohio Department of Natural Resources has currently invested in to not only keep the old structures operational but also structurally sound.

“The Zanesville project is substantially complete,” Whitmyer said. “We did have some major issues with the lower chamber. The bottom three portions of the sandstone walls were failing. Collaboration between ODNR, Gannett Fleming and ourselves, we came up with a system to support the walls while the work could be done. Once that was installed, we poured a concrete floor and buttress walls on the sides in both chambers.

Construction methods and materials have changed over the decades and sometimes innovation is needed to combine the different eras of materials and technologies.

“Here at Rokeby, we also had some huge structural problems,” Whitmyer said. “There was a small sinkhole when we started. Once we started the coffer dams and dewatered, the sinkhole increased tenfold. So we had to shut this project down as well and did some engineering again in collaboration with ODNR and Gannett Fleming. We put a tangent, grout, curtain-wall on the outside and filled them with grout.”

Aside from the structural repairs to the locks, maintenance items such as doors and valving have been replaced. ODNR reopened the Zanesville Lock to boat traffic earlier this summer and Whitmyer anticipates the Rokeby Lock to be functional later in the fall.