Zach Wamp

The crumbling Chickamauga lock in the Tennessee River is in danger of closing in the next five years unless Congress finds a way to put more money into building its replacement, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp said Thursday.

In a speech on the floor of the U.S. House, the Chattanooga Republican said funding for a replacement lock at the Chickamauga Dam in Chattanooga has reached “a crisis for the biggest inland waterway” in the eastern United States. Without more money, the new lock can’t be completed before the existing lock must shut down, Rep. Wamp said.

“Much like Paul Revere, I’ve come to the subcommittee, the committee and now the House today to say that we have a huge problem at the Chickamauga lock in the Tennessee River,” he said after being briefed on the project Thursday by officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Rep. Wamp and Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn., tried unsuccessfully Wednesday to convince a Senate/House congressional committee to OK a House-approved funding level of $14 million this year for the lock. But the committee voted 10-8 to give the Chickamauga lock only $1 million in the fiscal year that began Thursday.

“This is a critical problem, and (the $1 million appropriation) is not sufficient to move the project forward,” Rep. Wamp said. “The current lock will close and, if it does, it will be the largest inland waterway system in our country to ever close.”

Built in 1940, the lock through the Chickamauga Dam suffers from “concrete growth” caused by the reaction of the river water and the rock aggregate used to make the cement around the lock. It is becoming more difficult to close the lock’s doors because of the growth, dam officials have said.

U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., a member of the House Energy and Water Subcommittee, agreed with Rep. Wamp that the federal government needs to devote more resources to the Chickamauga lock and other inland waterway projects. But he said there wasn’t much support for the Chickamauga lock from Senate conference members.

The lock projects by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers usually are funded jointly with taxpayer money and matching tax collections from river users. For each gallon of diesel fuel they buy, barges that ply the inland waterways pay 20 cents into the Inland Waterway Users Trust Fund, which generates about $175 million annually.

Most of that money now is being absorbed by the Olmsted locks and dam project on the Ohio River, which is projected to cost nearly $2 billion and extend until 2021.

The stimulus package provided $57.5 million for the Chickamauga lock this year, according to project manager Wayne Huddleston, and those funds have helped build and install a cofferdam designed to dry out the river bed for the construction of the new and bigger lock.