December 31, 2020
By Shelley Byrne
Work continues on the addition of a second chamber at Kentucky Lock, with completion of the downstream cofferdam contract sometime in February projected to temporarily ease navigation delays that have been common over the last several months.
The earliest possible completion date for the entire project, at the Kentucky Lake reservoir of the Tennessee River, is in 2025, said Don Getty, project manager for the Nashville Engineer District.
“That’s assuming everything goes well,” Getty said.
The Kentucky Lock project includes adding a new lock twice as long as the existing 600-foot-long lock at the dam to reduce the significant bottleneck caused by high Tennessee River traffic levels and the current lock’s size.