THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 30, 1994 TAG: 9410280232
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Every now and then, I endeavor to bring you the answers to The Great Questions of Life. That is why you may find me at supermarket checkout counters studying the headlines in the tabloids.
Recently, a friend asked me if I knew what the lock on the canal at Great Bridge did. I looked for the answer in the tabloid headlines but could not find it. That was because neither Elvis nor O.J. nor Princess Di has ever been spotted at the lock.
No Elvis, no O.J., no Princess Di . . . no article.
Fortunately, there is Andy Reid. He didn't know Elvis, does not own a white Bronco and doesn't much care what Di does or who she does it with.
What he does care about is the Great Bridge Lock, the Great Bridge Drawbridge and the North Landing Bridge. It's his job to care about them. He is a project engineer for the U.S. of A. Army Engineers. We communed at the lock the other day, and I got a combined engineering and history lesson.
Your common, everyday, non-Great Bridge lock is designed to raise the water level of a canal so boats can float over low spots, Reid said. That's what the Deep Creek lock does. It's called a lift lock. But the one at Great Bridge is a guard lock because it guards water quality. Here's how:
The water west of the lock is the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River. That's salt water. The water east of the lock is fresh water from Currituck Sound. If you let them mix, the salt level of the sound soars and the duck population suffers. It's happened in the past. Another unhappy result of mixing river and sound was that nautical garbage from Norfolk harbor flowed along the river into the sound. Nasty stuff, as in the days when ships simply pumped raw sewage overboard.
The lock is 600 feet long and 72 feet wide. There's a set of gates at each end. When the boats are in the lock - it can hold as many as 20 - the gate at the west end is closed and the gate at the east end is opened. The boats pass through, and there's minimum mixing of the water.
Reid opened the gear box as the 45-ton gates swung the other day and showed me the innards. The interlocking gears looked like a giant watch works for Paul Bunyan.
Since Reid is also in charge of the bridge, I asked him about its future. He reminded me that it's on the Army Engineers' hit list. Sometime in the next several years, it will be replaced. And while I hate to get sentimental over a bridge, long-time Chesapeakers may mildly mourn its passing.
But they won't mourn it nearly as much as they cussed it in the days before the bypass opened. There were hot summer afternoons when you figured you might grow old and die in the line of traffic waiting while the bridge yawned to let pleasure boats pass. If you were close enough to see the boats, you might churn up a little class hatred for the boat drivers like peasants snarling inwardly at the lord of the manor. They were water-borne and cool with pleasing potions sliding down their privileged gullets. You were car-bound and sweaty and tired. If you had a submarine handy, you might even have fired a torpedo or two.
On the other hand, the drawbridge used to serve a handy social purpose. Let's say you were invited to dinner and dawdled over the all-chat, no facts, 6 p.m. local TV news. You couldn't just walk in late and reach for the salad fork. Drawbridge to the rescue.
You got out of your car at the host's house, checking your watch and chuckling ruefully. ``Durn bridge,'' you said. ``It was open, and I was stuck in line for 45 minutes.'' If your host was any kind of a veteran Great Bridger, he knew what you were talking about. He had been there himself.
Progress blew the drawbridge excuse out of the water when the Great Bridge Bypass opened. It was back to tried-and-true standby excuses, like ``Granny tried to run away and join the astronaut corps, and we had to hide the keys to her motorcycle.''
One of the possibilities of the projected replacement bridge is that Battlefield Boulevard will be widened where it feeds into the bridge. Egad, does this mean the end of that exciting competitive sport, lane squeezing?
When you approach the present bridge from the north, two lanes meld into one, and the people in the curb lane are only supposed to turn right off Battlefield. But there are sneaky types who like to ease past the ``right turn only'' sign and squeeze ahead of the honest drivers in the through lane.
It is a test of nerve and will. Do you hold your place in line, refusing to yield to the interloper on your right? Or, on a hot summer afternoon with the air conditioner on the blink and a 10-hour bad shift at work behind you, do you smile and let the right-hand driver slip smoothly by?
If you do, I'll notify St. Peter to reserve your harp and wings. You're a better man than I am, Bubba Din. by CNB