1968 Belleville Locks, Dam and 1999 42mw Hydropower on Ohio River

(Satellite)

I had complained that the Huntington District doesn't include aerial photos. But when I accessed their page in Mar 2022, they had this photo. This information is from their previous version of their Belleville page:

The damming height is 32' above the sills, and the normal lift is 22'. The locks are 1,200' and 600' x 110'. The eight Tainter gates are 110' wide and the "clearance above maximum high water when fully raised [is] approximately 5ft."

USACE
Replaced locks and dams Nos. 17, 18, 19 and 20 on Ohio River, Dam No. 1 on Little Kanawha River and Dam No. 1 on Muskingum River

AMP
[I believe this photo is of the Belleville Dam. AMP added the 42 MW run-of-the-river hydroelectric power plant to this dam.]

This is the third example I've seen of the Ohio River running high during the first week of March, 2021. The first example was a photo showing the downstream pool of a Byrd Lock that was about as high as the upstream pool. The second example was a video of a tow going under some Cincinnati bridges with a high river. This example is the M/V Edith Tripp becoming disabled because its single propeller got jammed by a log.

Dan Kemper posted
Edith Tripp, on the left and Mrs Hatcher passing under the Ravenswood bridge about 530 pm 3,/3/21. One of them broke loose upriver and was unmanned. It was caught and was being steered downriver. I think I have seen Mrs Hatcher moored at a sand and gravel business rt side descending , just below the Belleville lock.
Carl Reese: The boat was shoving out of Belleville Lock N/B lost power and went through the dam. They said the crew got off in a skiff with no motor and floated down in the Chamber and got off on a lock wall. We made crew change at Belleville this Morning on the Mary Lucy Lane. They locked up behind the Mary Lucy. My partner that relieved me called and told me that it happened. Glad everyone is ok.
Jamie Sunderland: Carl Reese talked to man over the locks this morning. The boat made it about 1/4 mile above the locks. Got something in the wheel and smoked the clutch. They then started getting folks to the banks. Boat hit the piers and broke loose. Boat went under roller and barge stayed stuck. They retrieved the other barge this morning. As they lowered water levels the barge shifted and flushed through also.
Dan Kemper: Carl Reese Crew was on the ball to get off that fast . Amazing.
Bud Osbourne: Jamie Sunderland The heavy drift, above the lock, is what got the Jon S. Strong stalled out right above the dam, in 2005. I suspect it was heavy drift accumulation that caused this one, also. Just glad to learn that everyone is OK. Could have been really horrible, very easily.]
Joe Engle: Mrs. Hatcher used to be Dale Taylor. Works the valley fleet at mile 230.
[Note that the gates were tainter, not roller. The trainter has 5' clearance above maximum high water. The hydrologic diagram below shows the maximum is 43' and the river was around 34' at the time of the allision. So it had 5+(43-34) = 14' of clearance. The M/V Edith Tripp is 34' tall with an 8' draft. So for a 26' boat to go through a 14' hole, the boat would have been shoved over pretty far as it went under the gate. It is amazing the radar mast is just bent rather than broken off.]

"While going through the Belleville Lock, a log became entangled in the single prop causing loss of power to the vessel." (So Bud Osbourne's theory of drift causing the accident was correct.) M/V Mrs Hatcher was able to catch up with the Edit Tripp around Portland, OH. In the photo above, it is returning the captured Edit Tripp to its base of operation, Valley Stone, in Millwood, WV. Later, Mrs Hatcher made another trip to retrieve the barge after it came loose from the dam. This article says Edith Tripp went through the lock instead of a gate. But that does not explain how the radar mast got bent. (The article's use of the name Miss Hatcher is incorrect. The Facebook comments are correct concerning Mrs Hatcher.) [MeigsIndyPress] (I didn't know that some towboats had just one screw. I wonder how they move the front end of a tow sideways with just one screw.)

The river was running high on Mar 3, 2021.

Hydrology

WTAP Screenshot @ 0:30
[Note that the barge is behind the middle two gates. There are closeups in the video.]

I'm updating the hydrology information so that I can compare the prediction to what actually happened.

Hydrology

Dan Kemper commented on his post
 Belleville lock under construction , about 1968

Dan Kemper commented on his post
I did have a pic of survey I did that still showed the crane rails from construction.

Jamie Sunderland commented on Dan's post
Here is the rails still in place from the crane.
Dan Kemper: That is a one heck of an imaging device. Amazing !!!

At first, I was trying to figure out why the water would be so turbulent in a lock. And then I realized that I was looking at an ice flow in the lock.

David Webster, Jan 2018

Another view of Mrs Hatcher towing Edit Tripp. The bridge in the background is at Ravenswood, WV, 

CR Neal commented on Dan Kemper's post
Glad to see I didn't photobomb your shot with my drone Dan Kemper.

Belleville is where the 8-man crew escaped from Edith Tripp, Portland is where the towboat was caught, Ravenswood is the location of the two photos, and the red dot is Millwood where the towboat was secured by the harbor towboat Mrs Hatcher.

Road Map