DATE: Wednesday, April 2, 1997              TAG: 9704020495

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: By MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: SOUTH MILLS                       LENGTH:   37 lines

ARMY ENGINEERS REOPEN DISMAL SWAMP CANAL AFTER REPAIRS

U.S. Army Engineers weren't fooling when they said early in March they'd have the Dismal Swamp Canal reopened for boat traffic about the first of April.

``We're lowering the last 42,000-pound lock gate into place right now,'' Ralph Stine, a Corps of Engineers project manager, said Tuesday afternoon. ``We expect to have the canal operational by Wednesday morning.''

A needed overhaul of the lock gates at South Mills and similar locks in Deep Creek caused the Army Engineers to close the 55-mile Dismal Swamp Canal a month ago.

``We did a lot of painting and replaced some of the heavy lock timbers at both ends of the Dismal Swamp,'' Stine said.

Putting the last lock gate into position Tuesday caused some nervous moments at South Mills.

``There was a lot of wind blowing straight down the canal and it gave everybody trouble with that 20-ton lock gate,'' said Frank Spruill, lockmaster at South Mills. ``It wasn't a time to hurry.''

Traffic on the Intracoastal Waterway continued the past month on the alternate Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal that runs from Great Bridge to Coinjock. Both waterways allow commercial and recreational boat traffic to travel between the Chesapeake Bay and Albemarle Sound.

The Dismal Swamp Canal carries heavy ``snowbird'' traffic in the fall when hundreds of northern yachts head south for the winter. The newly refurbished Dismal Swamp Canal locks will be ready for returning pleasure boaters who are willing to put up with occasional biting flies in exchange for the splendors of the Dismal Swamp's springtime scenery.

The locks at each end of the Dismal Swamp Canal are expected to return to a regular schedule of daily openings at 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., Stine said.

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