Although the depth over the sill is 9.6 meters (31 feet), most of the traffic through the lock consists of shallower-draft barge tows transiting the Intracoastal.

[3] The Industrial Canal and Lock were built by the Port of New Orleans to provide navigation between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain.

The MRGO was a deep-draft channel affording ocean-going vessels a short-cut from the Port of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico.

It was closed for two months, forcing marine traffic to take an oft-used detour through Breton Sound near the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Six of the ten original gates, fabricated around 1920 and weighing 250 tons apiece, were removed for sandblasting and replacement of weak spots.

Despite community opposition in the adjacent Lower 9th Ward and Bywater neighborhoods, Congress approved a $573 million replacement project in 1998, and site acquisition and preparation began.

A significant industrial exodus in the wake of the Katrina-induced closure of the MRGO has already transpired, with International Shipholding, Bollinger Shipyards and New Orleans Cold Storage departing.