Whereas 2017 is the 100-year anniversary of the completion of the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, known locally as the Ballard Locks, in Ballard, Washington; Whereas the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and the Lake Washington Ship Canal were completed on July 4, 1917, but were first proposed more than a half century earlier, when the city of Seattle was only 3 years old; Whereas the Locks and canal were conceived to support timber and other heavy industry activity in the area; Whereas the Navy also supported the Locks because it would create a strategic moorage for military vessels; Whereas the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks are the busiest in the Nation in overall vessel traffic, with more than 40,000 transits annually, and the 12th busiest in use by commercial traffic, with 7,500 commercial transits each year; Whereas more than 1 million tons of freight move through the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks each year; Whereas fishing vessels that use the Locks on a regular basis are responsible for an estimated $545 million in revenues in fisheries from Oregon to the North Pacific; Whereas 25 percent of all maritime industrial support activity in Puget Sound is connected to Alaska, accounting for 5,300 jobs and $390 million in annual wages for the sector; Whereas commercial fishing fleets depend on the Locks for access to centralized goods and services; Whereas the Locks welcome more than 1.25 million site visitors, including 150,000 tourists, school children, and other passengers who book cruises through the Locks annually; Whereas, as a visitor attraction, the Locks generate approximately $40 million in spending impacts each year; Whereas the construction of the Locks altered the Lake Washington system, eliminating fish habitat and native fisheries, including those on the Black River, which was the natural outlet of Lake Washington until it was permanently dewatered by the Locks