by Don Steen
Staff Writer ~ reporter@psci.net
Congressman Larry Bucshon was in the area last Monday to talk energy and infrastructure, along with a gamut of related issues. Rockport City Councilwoman Donna Lashley was on hand to help take the Republican representative for the Eighth District on a tour, beginning at the Cannelton Locks & Dam. It was a particularly steamy day, not particularly cooler amid the mountains of concrete and metal, but the recently revamped locks and hydro-power facilities did much to impress.
Bucshon met with a number of local workers at the dam, as well as Colonel L. Reyn Mann, District Commander for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Chief of Operations Waylon D. Humphrey. Humphrey was quick to get into the weeds of the recent restoration of the Cannelton dam, and the never-ending struggle to keep the Ohio River, and those that use it, on their best behavior.
In a brief history presentation, Waylon discussed the earliest efforts to tame the wild Ohio River. In 1820, Congress authorized a reconnaissance of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to determine their potential usefulness to the growing Republic, as well as the need for fortifications along them. These surveys turned up a laundry list of issues limiting navigability by larger craft, such as snags, shallows, sandbars, and other obstructions. Throughout the century efforts would be undertaken to dredge and control the river to more easily accommodate inland shipping, though these efforts would take time.
Read the rest of the story in this weeks’ issue of the Spencer County Leader!
