Main chambers at Locks 27 & Mel Price to close for repair

The main lock chambers at Locks 27, located in Madison County, Ill., and Melvin Price Locks and Dam north of St. Louis will close Jan. 1 through April 1, 2025, for critical repair work, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers St. Louis District said.

The 1,200′ main lock chamber at Locks 27 will close for lock wall embedded metal repairs, while the 1,200′ main lock chamber at Mel Price will close for the start of the third phase of a lock lift gate replacement project.

During the 60-day closures, the 600′ auxiliary locks at both sites will remain open 24/7 to accommodate tows and boats passing through, the Corps said.

Locks 27, also known as the Chain of Rocks Lock and Dam, is located at the southern end of Chouteau Island near St. Louis, along the Upper Mississippi River. The dam is situated just downstream of the Chain of Rocks Bridge, while the lock itself is located over 3 miles southeast, on the artificial Chain of Rocks Canal. The canal and lock system has been operational since 1953, enabling river traffic to bypass a stretch of the river that becomes unnavigable during low water levels, due to an exposed section of bedrock—known as the "Chain of Rocks"—that obstructs the river.

The southernmost locks on the Mississippi River and the only locks south of the confluence of the Mississippi River and Missouri River, Locks 27 moves more cargo than any other navigation structure on the Mississippi River.

Opened in 1990 to replace Lock and Dam 26, Melvin Price Locks and Dam is a dam and two locks at river mile 200.78 on the Upper Mississippi River, about 17 miles north of Saint Louis.

During the upcoming closure, Mel Price’s three-leaf upstream lift gate will be replaced with a modern two-leaf lift gate that will provide improved overlap between individual gate leaves to better support vertical loads and reduce operational issues from gate separation and operational interlocks, the Corps said.