AMSTERDAM — Battered by floodwaters, the Erie Canal is unlikely to reopen this autumn before it shuts down for the winter in November.

“It’s not going to happen. Looking at the damage, I’m pretty sure it’s not going to open this year,” said Rob Goldman, owner of NYS Marine Highway, a shipping company that frequents the canal system. “The storms were catastrophic.”

The canal is indefinitely closed between Waterford and Utica. Heavy rains from tropical storms Irene and Lee caused flooding at five locks, from Vischer Ferry in Clifton Park to just west of Amsterdam, when the rising waters ripped open dams and reshaped the shoreline.

Touring damaged Lock 11 in Amsterdam on Monday, Canal Corp. Director Brian U. Stratton and his deputy, John Callaghan, showed U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer where floodwaters knocked out vertical steel support beams in the middle of the dam — which are designed to pop out like ski bindings, preserving the larger structure. In many places, water jumped the river’s banks and “scoured” new channels around the concrete locks.

“They’re now in the middle of the river,” said Callaghan, noting waters haven’t receded at locks 9 and 10, just east.

“We have to move the locks back?” Schumer asked.

“No,” Callaghan replied. “We’ve got to move the river back.”

And until they can accomplish that, Canal Corp. officials say they won’t even be able to fully assess the damage to the system. Work crews have put in fresh fill where they can but are waiting for water levels to finally recede before inspecting dams contorted or blown by rushing water and debris. Lee’s rains fell Thursday, but it could be at least Tuesday before levels drop low enough, Stratton explained.

“It’s going to be tough,” he said. “Getting the canal back in full operating order … is going to be very challenging. The question is whether we can get it functioning, and even sufficiently functioning even to

Article source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Transportation/~3/CHW7FAzPWyU/Erie-Canal-likely-shut-until-spring-2167630.php