Video

Video by Michel Sauret

Tour of the New Montgomery Batch Plant Pad

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District

Dec. 31, 2024 | 4:08

Jenna Cunningham, the resident engineer for the Upper Ohio River Project, takes viewers on a quick tour of the newly completed batch plant pad at Montgomery Locks and Dam. The pad may seem like an ordinary, empty parking lot, but it will serve a key role in staging the new batch plant that will be built on site to produce 400,000 cubic yards of concrete to construct a new lock chamber!

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District has awarded a nearly $770 million contract through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to construct a new 110-foot by 600-foot lock chamber at Montgomery Locks and Dam in Monaca, Pennsylvania. Per President Biden’s Executive Order 14063 on Project Labor Agreements for Federal Construction Projects, the project also has a Project Labor Agreement in place, providing for union labor.

Montgomery Locks is a critical element of national supply chains, enabling the transport of 12 million tons of goods annually on barges into and out of the Port of Pittsburgh. The locks are now nearly a century old and are at an increased risk of failure that would severely disrupt these supply chains. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invested more than $1 billion to the Upper Ohio Navigation Project to include modernizing Montgomery Locks, which helps get goods to shelves reliably. The project is the largest Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded project in Pennsylvania and will support more than 13,000 jobs during construction.

The district awarded the construction contract to the Trumbull-Brayman Construction Corporation, Joint Venture of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The contract begins the construction of the new lock chamber. The work involves removing the 56-foot by 360-foot auxiliary lock chamber and constructing a new 110-foot by 600-foot primary lock chamber.

(U.S. Army Corps of Engineers video by Michel Sauret)