One of the state's oldest dams now features an unusual site sure to draw spectators and photographers alike: an aboveground generating turbine.
The massive motor at Bankhead Lock and Dam on the Black Warrior River was lifted out in April and is on display on the road leading to the facility. And it's not going anywhere.
"It was cheaper to put it off to the side and let it sit there than pay someone to haul it off," said John Kirkland, Alabama Power's Warrior River Hydro manager. "It's pretty cool. I've seen a lot of people on bikes riding by taking pictures."
A new turbine manufactured in York, Pennsylvania, is scheduled to arrive in February. But there's more going on at Bankhead than just a new turbine. An extensive $17 million makeover will include a new control room, headgates, stop-logs, wicket gates (which let water flow into the turbine) and other improvements.
"It's pretty much going to be a new operating unit," Kirkland said.
Bankhead Lock and Dam, known by locals as simply "Lock 17," straddles the Warrior River between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1915, it went into service a year after Alabama Power's first hydro facility, Lay Dam.
Fast-forward 48 years when Alabama Power installed a one-turbine generating unit at Bankhead in 1963. It was replaced in 1997 by the turbine that was removed recently.
"It started vibrating badly, and we couldn't figure out what it was," Kirkland said. The result: The near-two-decades-old turbine hasn't turned since 2015.
Unlike the one on display, which was assembled in sections, the new turbine, built by American Hydro, will be a one-piece solid unit, which Kirkland predicts will last 40 years.
