“This is an on-gate blocking road access to some cell towers. Why so many locks and how would someone even open it?”
A: "You can open the gate by unlocking only one padlock. The way it’s designed means that multiple people can use the gate, and if one person loses their keys, only their padlock needs to be replaced. As opposed to one padlock with many keys, you’d need to give tons of people the new key."
Thanks Internet.
"... and the liquid will drop through the slit in the middle."
Let's keep it clean; this is not an AO site.