Young Man River (1955)

la ladies and gentlemen the captain has just turned on the seat belt sign in preparation for landing at the greater Cincinnati airport thank you as often as I make that trip Pittsburgh and back I'm always impressed coming into Cincinnati you get a good look at the river the Ohio miles of it the shipping Factor the cities it's something everyone ought to see Rivers the big ones have a genuine Fascination we write about them sing about him and there's a reason this country wouldn't be the same without its rivers especially the Ohio back even before the Declaration of Independence that word Ohio had a magic in [Applause] it the American Settler was headed west and so so is the Ohio he floated Downstream and built his farms and towns near the [Music] river before long the settler changed the Ohio into a highway for trade by shipping his farm Goods to Market you see the settler knew the value of water [Music] transportation he knew that if he carried his Goods to Market in a wagon his mule could pull only a limited load but if the same mule was harnessed to a barge his load is unlimited it's just a law of physics things move easier on [Music] water in modern times if goods and materials are not bulky and to the door delivery is the requirement modern Trucking will do the job just fine when the bulk of the cargo becomes greater and distance is affected the modern diesel train is the answer but when materials are shipped in tens of thousands of tons and advanced planning has scheduled its arrival a modern towboat cannot be [Music] beat if the cargo is heavy and bulky the cost of moving it on a water highway is normally lower than by any other method that's why the Ohio is a busy trade route today busier every year it's saves money for modern Americans just as it did for the first settlers at first glance the story of the Ohio seems pretty straightforward a long water Highway economical Transportation adding up to a busy and prosperous trade well there's much more to it than that the Ohio by nature is a lion stubborn and strong willed it's been America's job to put the lion in a cage and that's quite a story from prehistoric times until well around the gay 90s the Ohio operated on its own terms when it wanted and how it wanted we just did the best we could with the situation you can understand the problem if you picture a rooftop during a rainstorm when it rains water runs deep it will flow as long as the supply continues but since the roof is steep it will quickly run [Music] off the Ohio in the old days was much the same it's a steep River dropping 460 ft in the 981 mies from Pittsburgh to the Mississippi in the winter and spring as snow melted all along the Ohio water shed there was plenty of [Music] water the paddle whe steamboats could move along the river [Music] easily when the steamboats were on the move the economy prospered [Music] temporarily when there were dry seasons there was trouble water ran off the Steep Ohio as it runs off a roof the level often drops so low that a man could wait across the river in many [Music] places the river boats just sat and waited and prosperity slowed to a walk a situation which a growing young country couldn't tolerate for long between 1879 and 1910 Congress authorized as an investment in a natural resource the construction of 54 locks and dams the cage to control the unreliable Ohio the dams transformed the river into a series of pools keeping the water from running off in dry [Music] seasons now the river boats moved goods and people all year round Prosperity became a full-time operation each of the dams stretching from bank to bank would have been a block to the Riverbats without the installation of locks the lock is a water escalator which moves boats and barges to either the upstream or Downstream level the level is changed by emptying the water from the lock chamber or to go Upstream by refilling it by 1929 46 locks and dams were completed the Ohio was now a yearr round Highway in the years since 1929 the Ohio has become a River Highway that churns with activity any time of the year day or night at any one of those locks and dams you'll see the Caged Ohio in action toes moving up and down the long water Highway feeding a swelling River Prosperity they now call the Ohio Valley boom the dams maintain pools of water to a constant depth of 9 ft or more water for people and Industry water for year round Transportation the story of the booming traffic past these dams and past each lock can be read in the steady sure movement of the heavyweight River cargos it can be read in the scars on the lock walls and of the hardworking Gates the proof is there to see this is an investment which has been put to maximum use the lock gates open today to nearly four times as much tonnage per year as they did in 1930 barges move in and through the locks carrying each ton of their caros more than three times as far as they did when the locks were young tons and miles are the measure of river activity on the Ohio the increase in ton miles since 1930 has boomed from 1 and A2 billion then to nearly 19 billion T miles today that's 13 times more and there were people believe it or not who thought the Ohio was busy in 1930 heavy cargo big toes long miles that's the Ohio [Music] today the lock and dams were ready luckily for the second world war when enemy submarines cut down our Coastal shipping the Ohio carried its full share of the extra load it had a fine War record my branch of the service the Army Corps of Engineers supervise the construction of the locks and dams and we operate them in the name of Congress the locks and dams on the Ohio led to further modernization the 9ft minimum depth of the river made it possible to introduce a new kind of toeo deep water brought the diesel powered tobo to the river its diesel engines produce thousands of horsepower driving efficient high-speed propellers which could not be used in shallow water therefore the propeller has replaced the old steam powered Paddle Wheel speed and efficiency youthfulness has come to the toeo in the Pilot House communications are right up to date there's radio telephone to reach headquarters and shortwave radio to contact other Toots and lock Masters it's one of the longest and most interesting party lines in the world the pilot has direct control over both speed and direction on a Modern Diesel a major contribution to safety and good piloting modern two are the crew quarters air conditioned and homelike but one thing hasn't changed the food it's man's food and it's usually eaten in contented silence there are even new ways to do many old jobs on the river one example a device to tighten and loosen the cables which tie the bar is [Music] together fog storm and darkness once shut the Ohio down radar sweeping the Hidden River on all sides has solved that problem when the pilot can't see the river ahead of his toe he turns to radar now he can see clearly both Tow and River radar has made the Ohio a 24 hour a day [Music] River when you analyze the Steep rise in Ohio River traffic all these factors play A Part the locks and dams Diesel power and radar but to understand exactly how the Ohio Valley econom IC boom has happened you have to know about the cargos the Ohio carries that's the heart of the story The reason why everything else has been done of all the cargos Cole is Undisputed King the Ohio flows through fields which produce 34s of the Nations binous Co some 40 million tons of coal move on the Ohio annually more than four times the level of [Music] 1930 most of the coal shipped on the Ohio reaches customers located right on the river banks the cost of barged coal has in fact attracted much new industry to the river a major reason for the in the Ohio Valley economy Coal's largest customer is the electric power industry which burns the coal to produce Steam for its generators electric power plants have multiplied in The Valley in recent years bringing with them a host of other Industries the formula is a simple one coal costs less in the Ohio Valley electricity can therefore be generated for less and lowcost electricity attracts power consuming Industries the boom pyramids higher and higher [Music] lowcost electricity has attracted $2.5 billion of atomic energy projects plants which produce u235 fuel for Atomic devices abundant power has attracted new aluminum smelters which now produce more more than half our national aluminum output so vital is barged coal to this generation and consumption of electric power that in the Ohio Valley you will often hear electricity described as coal by [Music] wire another Power consuming coal consuming Ohio Valley industry is steel user of many River born cargos scrap metal pig iron and other materials for steel the Ohio's coal moves to steel mills All Along The River it's converted to Coke for the steel making process steel has l used the river to ship raw materials and finished products and also consumes great quantities of river water the Ohio is Main Street for one of the great steel producing areas of the [Music] [Applause] [Music] world every year the steel industry ships about 4 million tons of its products along the Ohio some of it such as pipe for the oil country traveling as much as 2500 River miles to its [Music] [Applause] destination coil and sheet steel are unloaded from barges and shipped by by Truck and Train to manufacturing plants sometimes far from the river economical Ohio Valley coal and electricity have helped to keep the cost of such steel down and that means lower cost steel products for families in St Louis Houston Columbus New Orleans and in many other cities distant from the [Music] valley the journey made by sand and gravel is much shorter they begin their travels in Midstream dredged from the river bottom and move to the banks they will become material for buildings and highways throughout the growing Ohio Valley chemical plants are enjoying a billion dooll boom along the Ohio brought by River Transportation abundant water supply and plenty of natur natural resources if you hear someone talking about America's chemical River it's the [Music] Ohio oil and gasoline are major cargos moving for the most part from pipeline Terminals and refineries to customers all along the river as well as its tributaries from the surrounding farmlands come products of the fine Ohio Valley soil just as in the days of the settlers when the Ohio first became a great commercial Highway it all adds up to one thing people a hardworking prosperous people settled beside the Ohio Ohio building cities that built America industrial cities such as Wheeling West Virginia the friendly City Huntington West Virginia the jewel City Louisville Kentucky at the Falls of the Ohio River Cincinnati Ohio Queen City of the river Pittsburgh Pennsylvania where the Manila and alany meet to form the Ohio where it all begins Gateway to the West [Music] private voters have clearly defined legal rights to use the locks a man can cover a lot of country when he goes cruising all the way to New Orleans if he chooses the Ohio is an open Waterway for every American for business or for pleasure the people have invested in the river and the river has returned not only Prosperity but plenty of fun in the bargain you can see why I enjoy coming over the Ohio on my air trips it's not only beautiful it's prosperous a river that means a lot to all of us so it might surprise you to learn that there are problems on the Ohio big problems ironically the same locks and dams which brought Prosperity are now choking the growth of that Prosperity we've got ourselves a KingSize traffic jam you can see them any day racing to get to the lock first there's good reason when they get to the lock they may find four or five toes backed up waiting their turn and the last man in line could wait as long as 5 to 10 hours as the toeb boats were improved the size of the toes was increased which means we're locking 1200t toes through 600t locks and there's only one way to do it by a process called called double locking the pilot first steers the forward half of his toe into the lock then the toe is broken and the second half backs away the upper gate is then closed and the forward half of the toe is lowered the Lower Gate opens and the barges are pulled [Music] out the lower gate is closed and the lock chamber is refilled the upper gate is again opened to admit the balance of the [Music] toe the gate is closed and the second section is [Music] lowered leaving the lock it is rejoined to the forward barges and then continues on its way double locking takes about an hour and a half multiply that by the hundreds of large toes on the river and repeat at a lock an average of every 21 miles the sum total is a 5:00 rush hour 24 hours a day needless to say we have to do something about a situation like that just as we once had to do something about the problem of runoff on the Ohio along the 981 Mi of the Ohio we had you'll remember installed 46 lucks and dams today 46 probable traffic jams now Congress has once again stepped in approving a program to replace those structures with 19 larger locks and dams to stretch out the pools of Open Water the highway is becoming a [Music] Turnpike in place of the old locks of 600 ft the cause of the long delays of double locking we are building locks which are twice as long 1200 ft the long toe which must spend 90 minutes double locking in an old lock locks straight through the new one in about 20 minutes result no traffic jam we're in a tight race building these new locks and dams the improvements running neck and neck with the growth of river traffic building a Lock and Dam installation is a major piece of engineering it takes one and 1/2 years just to get the structure down on Blueprints and another 6 years to build it on the average it also takes about $60 [Music] million the new dams are of the high lift gated Crest type each contains enough concrete to build 70 M of Interstate Highway [Music] these new structures are colossal compared to the old style they'll hold back as much as a 37 foot wall of [Music] water each of the dams has two separate locks one 12200 ft and the other 600 ft it costs less to build these 19 new locks and dams than to repair and modernize the old ones with a fully modernized Ohio River the valley and the nation will prosper more the program will cost about a billion dollar but we'll get it all back and then [Music] some [Applause] [Music] at the completion of each Lock and Dam a formal dedication is held a pleasant American style ritual with a little Fourth of July flavor the locks and dams belong to the people who pay taxes and who come to dedications to enjoy seeing their money well spent and well spent it is each structure is an engineering Triumph a source of Pride for every [Music] [Applause] [Music] American it's a gigantic task this transformation of the Ohio but remember we are making an investment in ourselves one which adds materially to our nation's wealth and prosperity think of the Ohio as a young man its water Swift with excitement and ambition steeped with the promise of growth and greatness the Ohio therefore belongs not only to the states through which it flows it belongs to every American for every American benefits in some way from its [Applause] being [Music] and