Fourteen shovels will be thrust into the ground in Sault Ste. Marie Tuesday, June 30, to signify the first dirt turned on a $580 million project to build a new Soo Lock. Governor Jennifer Granholm, Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, Congressman Bart Stupak, and Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Anthony Bosbous will be among the diggers on hand to usher in the project, which is expected to take at least 10 years to complete, depending on funding. The new lock will be the same size as the 41-year-old Poe Lock and able to accommodate the largest ships traveling on the Great Lakes.

A public open house is planned for Friday, June 30, from 9 a.m. to noon at the locks to celebrate the groundbreaking. The actual groundbreaking of the new lock will start at 10 a.m. on the strip of land between the Poe and Davis Locks. About 300 people are expected to attend the open house and groundbreaking ceremony.

Funding for the new lock, which is unnamed, will be dependent on government appropriations year by year. About $17 million was appropriated for the project this year, with the majority, about $15 million, going toward design. The lock will be built in sections as subsequent appropriations are accrued.

An estimated 15,000 jobs are expected to be created during construction of the new lock.

Almost $2 million of the remaining 2009 appropriation was awarded, via the Detroit District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to T.A.B. Construction Company of Canton, Ohio, June 9, to begin construction on the project. The company will build coffer dams to block water flow into the Sabin Lock, which is the lock closest to the Canadian border, so workers will be able to construct the new lock in a dry environment. Construction and installment of coffers at both ends of the Sabin Lock is expected to take about one year.

The new lock will replace the Davis and Sabin Locks, which are both inoperable, with one Poe-sized lock.

The 90-year-old Sabin Lock will essentially be widened 30 feet, from 80 to 110 feet, and deepened nine feet, from 23 to 32 feet. The distance between the lock gates will be shortened by 150 feet, decreasing from 1,350 to 1,200 feet in length.

Al Klein, area engineer at the Sault Ste. Marie Office of the Corps of Engineers, said the Davis Lock, which is the oldest of the four commercial locks, will be filled in, increasing the amount of land between the Poe and newly constructed lock. The Davis, MacArthur, and Poe Locks were constructed in 1914, 1943, and 1968, respectively.

Groundbreaking on the new lock comes on the heels of the Locks' annual Engineering Day Friday, June 26, which is the one day out of the year the public is allowed to cross the gates of the locks onto the area between the MacArthur and Poe Locks to watch the vessels pass through, up close. The public will also be allowed to cross over the lock gates for the groundbreaking ceremony.

About 8,460 vessels passed through the locks last year, carrying 80.6 million tons of cargo, including iron ore, coal, and stone.

"This is a very significant day in the long life of this project as we now move to the actual construction phase," Corps Project Manager John Niemiec said.

Integral to the national and international transportation system, the Poe Lock is the largest in the Western Hemisphere and the busiest lock in the world. The only one capable of handling the largest freighters, the Poe lock handles twothirds of all freight that goes through the Soo Locks.