Home / Media / News Stories
Results:
Archive: March, 2023
Clear

  • March

    Brent Kelly, a maintenance mechanic, prepares a lifting beam to lift a new gate hoist during its installation in the control tower at the Crooked Creek Dam in Ford City, Pennsylvania, Feb. 14, 2023. BCI Construction installed four new hoists – each weighing 38,000 pounds apiece and control the dam’s gates – at Crooked Creek Lake to modernize the facility’s machinery and improve usage. The new hoists make the machinery safer and more efficient to use, with digital displays that are more accurate and easier to read. The original hoists were in operation since the dam was built in 1938. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Andrew Byrne)

    New hoists at Crooked Creek Lake offer flood protection for the next 75 years

    They may just look like large hunks of metal, but the new hoists installed at Crooked Creek Lake will go hard at work to reduce the risk of floods in the greater Pittsburgh region for the next 75 years or longer. The hoists – weighing 38,000 pounds apiece – work to lift reservoir gates to control the lake’s water level and mitigate flooding downstream. Flood mitigation is one of the Corps of Engineers’ primary missions, and Crooked Creek Dam has helped prevent flooding for both the local community and downtown Pittsburgh since the dam’s construction in 1938.
  • Many Boy Scouts who volunteered to help with the project are avid anglers passionate about helping wildlife. Their service work at Youghiogheny will also help them earn their fish and wildlife management badges. In addition, their volunteer hours will also count towards their community service goals and help them increase in rank.

    Local Boy Scout troops help assemble fish habitats at Youghiogheny River Lake

    They may look like large, spiky wheels for medieval torture machinery, but mossback habitats provide life to fisheries and offer broad benefits to lake ecosystems.