Heavy Civil Soo Lock Upstream Approach Wall

The joint venture team of Kokosing Alberici, LLC was awarded a contract to rehabilitate approach walls to the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, MI.  This contract is Phase 2 of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to upgrade the facility with a second lock capable of handling the largest 1,000’ lake freighters.  Adding a second lock will eliminate a potential single point of failure in the critical raw steel making material supply chain.

The work to rehabilitate the upstream approach walls consists of installing over a mile of new approach walls in a newly deepened channel at of at least 30’ in depth.  The new approach walls are a combination of sheet pile cells, z-pile walls, and soldier piles with concrete lagging all of which are topped by reinforced concrete cap slabs with integrated mooring bits, lighting, and fendering.  Construction of the walls requires over 60,000 CY of concrete which will be produced in an onsite batch plant operated by the JV team.  The project also requires placement of 30,000 CY of underwater tremie concrete under strict mass concrete thermal control parameters.  The project site is inaccessible by vehicle so all material and labor must be ferried across the very active federal navigation channel or delivered directly by lake freighter.