Chuck FleischmannU.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., pledged today to work to gain at least $6.9 million in funding in the next year to reactivate work on the stalled Chickamauga Lock.
Fleischmann told the downtown Rotary Club he will work in his role on the House Appropriations Committee to get more money for the lock being built in Chattanooga by the Army Corps of Engineers. In the White House budget plans, the Corps didn’t include any money to restart the replacement lock at the Chickamauga Dam in either the fiscal 2015 or fiscal 2016 budgets.
Fleischmann referred to the $680 million lock project, often referred to by the Corps as the “Chick” lock, as the “Chuck” lock because of the attention he is paying to getting it restarted.
“The Chickamauga Lock, affectionately known by many as the Chick Lock, is now being referred to all over the United States as the “Chuck” lock,” Fleischmann quipped.
Fleischmann said he worked last year to revamp what he said was “a broken trust fund” where all of the available funding for new locks and dams was going toward the Olmsted Lock in Ohio. The funding formula was changed, Chickamauga was listed as the fourth highest priority project and the diesel fuel tax on barges will be raised April 1 from 20 cents to 29 cents a gallon to provide more funds for Corps projects on inland waterways.