Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) – The 600-foot long concrete and steel Lockport Lock and Dam is the first gateway on the barge shipping artery known as the Illinois Waterway — the shipping route linking the state and the world.

If it or any of the six other locks and dams between here and St. Louis were to fail, the transportation of about $16 billion a year worth of grain, goods, coal, chemicals and other industrial raw material for industries in Illinois would be at risk. [read more…]