River shipping resumes after Little Goose delays

The navigation lock at Little Goose Dam returned to service at approximately 10 p.m. on Monday, April 10, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials in the Walla Walla District.

The corps conducted an extended navigation lock maintenance outage Dec. 12 through March 20. The 14-week-long closure affected all eight navigation locks on the Columbia and Snake rivers, during which time critical, non-routine repairs and maintenance, plus routine maintenance and scheduled improvements, were completed.

As previously announced, Little Goose Dam's navigation lock could not be returned to service by its original March 20 target date because of on-site work complications which prompted the Corps to award a new contract March 10 for the completion of the remaining critical repairs on the downstream navigation lock gate.