Bonneville dam reopens early

A few days ahead of schedule, the Bonneville Dam reopened to river traffic on Friday, Sept. 27. The original scheduled reopen date was Sept. 30.

Traffic along the river has been stopped since Sept. 5, when a crack was found in the concrete sill of the navigation lock, halting barges full of grain and other materials waiting to get from Inland Northwest ports to the coast as well as the cruise boat industry.

According to the US Army Corp of Engineers, Portland District webpage, there has been daily work on repairing the lock since its closure.

Dan Hart, general manager at Almota Elevator Co., said that they had two barges in the “trapped above Bonneville” queue.

“One has already gotten through and discharged at a terminal in Vancouver over the weekend,” Hart said. “So all is back to normal, so to speak, in the waterborne shipping.”

Hart said he personally hasn’t heard of any shippers caught real badly by the unexpected closure.

Bigger than the dam closure, Hart believes the real problem has been the weather putting a damper on local producers who have not completed their harvest by the first week of September.

“There are some individual situations on at least a small number of acres of mainly garbs, but also some wheat that is still unharvested,” Hart said. “I’m not an expert on garbs, but any wheat still in the field is going to be feed quality at best now.”

Wanda Keefer, manager at the Port of Clarkston said during the time of closure, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was tremendously responsive.

“Not only were they able to open Bonneville Locks earlier than anticipated, they performed minor work on two other locks as the system was already shut down,” Keefer said. “This bodes well for continued reliability of the Columbia/Snake River system.”

With the reopening, the cruise boat visits will resume normal operation this week.

Keefer said that commerce to the Lewis-Clark Valley has returned, not only with cruise boat traffic, but with the resumption of grain movement.

Keefer concluded that she has no other worries or concerns.

Bonneville is located approximately 40 miles upstream from Portland.