[2] According to the New York Times, in 2015 80.2 million tonnes of cargo transited the lock, making it the biggest and most economically important, in the United States.

[1] In a profile of the lock, the New York Times called it a "serious bottleneck", causing delays of 15 to 20 hours.

Annually, 135 million tonnes of cargo passed through the lock.

[1][3] In November 2016, the New York Times reported the Olmsted project was then scheduled to be complete in October 2018.

The New York Times reported that according to the US Army Engineers, the federal agency responsible for maintaining navigation on the United States' rivers, the delay in replacing the lock complex with the Olmsted project cost $640 million per year.