Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Urban exploration in St. Louis, Missouri
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Nicotti
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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by Nicotti »

So the way it appears to have been constructed is concrete cells that hold rock inside and then on the upstream side there are railroad track that come out of the concrete straight up, which have grabbed a huge amount of trees.

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Interesting piece of concrete fill, there were two of these near each other.
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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by Nicotti »

Almost to the end.
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End of the road. By the speed at which the river was flowing between where I was and the dike that attaches to the intake tower, I think it's prolly washed out thru there.
If not then the river needs to get at least another 4 ft lower.
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Looking north at the two bridges from the end of the dike.
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Looking back to shore from the end.
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More online investigation than onsite exploration these days.

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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

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If the water level there dropped another 1-2 ft the dike would be a lot wider all the way down to the end. The downstream side is taller than the upstream side. But the upstream side was still only about a foot underwater for most of the walk out. Except for one or two parts that had washed out some.
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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by Nicotti »

Found a couple 2-3 inch long clam shells (dead) and a tee ball, otherwise not that much... but i didn't climb through the trees on the upstream side so there could be some cooler trash to be found in there.
More online investigation than onsite exploration these days.

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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by The Count »

Dude someone just get me a boat
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RE: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by archinstl »

WOW! Thanks for the photos - I've wondered about this since I was a little kid when we drove over the bridge.

That "interesting piece of concrete fill" in the last photo of the first series is actually the base of an old City street lamp post; the hole at the bottom is for the supply cable.
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RE: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

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So.. Close...
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Re: RE: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by Nicotti »

archinstl wrote:WOW! Thanks for the photos - I've wondered about this since I was a little kid when we drove over the bridge.

That "interesting piece of concrete fill" in the last photo of the first series is actually the base of an old City street lamp post; the hole at the bottom is for the supply cable.
Yeah I thought it looked like one, but I wasn't sure.

The water was really whipping thru that area past the end of the dike, enough so that I didn't even want to walk out to that last piece of concrete cause it was making me nervous. Plus the wind was really gusty out there today.
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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

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I made a point of not going near the water intake structure, or the fences. Cause I was pretty sure it's not illegal being on the dike since it's technically in the river and below the normal water line. But I wasn't so sure about the rest. Didn't see anyone from the water supply watching me (although that doesn't mean they weren't by security camera). But I saw a least 10 people on the Old Chain of Rocks bridge stop to watch me.
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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by redox »

Great shots nic thanks! That is reallly interesting that there are old rail tracks on that dike. I am guessing they were used to haul equipment, materials, or possibly excavated stone during construction?
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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

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redox wrote:Great shots nic thanks! That is reallly interesting that there are old rail tracks on that dike. I am guessing they were used to haul equipment, materials, or possibly excavated stone during construction?
Actually, I didn't get a pic of it, but they were vertically coming out of the upstream side of the dike every 8 ft or so near the shore, but as I got out farther it stopped doing that. So I'm not sure if it was designed that way or if the river pushed them out there. There also seemed to be alot of rails that were just dumped on or near the dike as fill.



Looking at my photo and the old photo of when the dike was totally exposed(page 4 this thread). It looks like about a 3' difference in river depth. Come on drought! Keep the river going down!
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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by Nicotti »

Hello rain, goodbye dike. The river is up 2 ft since last weekend and is forecasted to go up 2ft more by the end of the weekend.
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Re: RE: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by Nicotti »

Freak wrote:
DT Gage Height
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Re: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by redox »

When what is left of Issac makes it here or to the Ohio River Valley, the river will be probably be back to it's pre drought levels..for a while anyway.
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RE: Chain of Rocks Water Intake towers?

Post by Mandi Milenko »

Cool pics Nic!!!! Took me a minute to see them I guess :)
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