Chief of Engineers visits Soo Locks

Soo Area Office Area Engineer Kevin Sprague, right, briefs Chief of Engineers Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon, second from right, about the Detroit District’s Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, during a visit October 22. Spellmon, Command Sergeant Major Patrickson Toussaint and several others toured the facility and the New Lock at the Soo project currently under construction.
The new lock will replace two older, smaller decommissioned locks and be about the same size as the 1969-built Poe Lock. It is 1,200 feet long, 110 feet wide and 32 feet deep. The Poe is the only lock that can handle the largest freighters used on the upper Great Lakes. About 80 million tons of commercial commodities worth an estimated $500 billion pass through the Soo Locks each year.