Derek Lacey
The first thing you might notice about ENR Southeast Region Editor Derek Lacey’s recent report on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ lock replacement project at the dam Chickamauga, near Chattanooga, Tennessee, are two descriptive wide-angle photographs of the project to complement its narrative. One shows a barge entering the existing dock. Another shows the new dock chamber and the Tennessee River.
Lacey could have taken photos of the project with nothing more sophisticated than her phone camera. But as a veteran journalist and newspaper editor, he pulls out a Nikon or Canon digital camera, putting them to good use on the site visits that are a hallmark of many ENR project features. The Waterways Council, which advocates for inland harbors and waterways, organized the site visit for a group that included Lacey, as well as several Chattanooga community and industry officials concerned about the lock.
The photos Lacey took added an extra dimension to her story, much of which dealt with the need to create a new lock due to the weathered concrete of the existing structure. Since it opened in 1940, the lock itself has expanded 1 foot in length and 4 inches in height due to the alkali-aggregate reaction. “The corps staff were very open about the issues,” says Lacey, whose work has won awards for everything from research and reporting to her use of multimedia and photography. He joined ENR in 2022.
Based in Huntsville, Alabama, where Redstone Arsenal, including NASA and its space-related contractors, dominate the economy, Lacey is well positioned to reach the region’s busiest construction markets.
Lacey is also the perfect person to understand the importance of infrastructure in the life and commerce of American communities, having worked for newspapers in North Carolina where she covered the growth and development of Asheville. As is common in newspaper careers, Lacey also covered school boards and city government, which gives her a strong sense of what will resonate with ENR’s Southeast region readers as she evaluates projects and issues about which to write
Related to the Chickamauga blocking feature, “there was just so much information” shared by the Corps of Engineers, he says, that made it “hard to stop writing” when he reached the roughly 1,100-word limit for the its function You can also read the story online at enr.com/topics/233-southeast-construction-projects.
Richard Korman
Deputy Editor
