River locks open, Dam next

Navigation locks at Lower Monumental and Lower Granite dams returned to service at 2:30 p.m. Monday, but the lock at Little Goose is now projected to remain closed until April 2. The Army Corps of Engineers last week reported setback on work at the lock gate at Little Goose has led to a delay in finishing the project in time to put the lock back in service on the March 20 target date for getting the river system back on line.

Some work on tainter valves at Lower Monumental and Lower Granite remains to be done, and that could extend lockage times by more the 20 minutes longer than usual. Additionally, divers will continue making underwater timber-bumper repairs on Lower Monumental's floating guidewall upstream of the lock. Divers will be vacated from the guidewall area during tug/tow operations.

The Corps of Engineers is nearing the scheduled end of an extended navigation lock maintenance outage which began Dec. 12, 2016. The coordinated 14-week-long closure has affected all eight Corps navigation locks on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Ice Harbor lock is tentatively scheduled to return its lock to service March 23.