The replacement of the crumbling Chickamauga lock in Chattanooga should get another $29 million in the current fiscal year under the comprehensive spending plan up for a vote in Congress this week.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who leads the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, said money slated for the new lock in the Omnibus Appropriations bill should allow construction of the new lock to continue. The project, which ran out of funding three years ago, got a limited $3 million of funding in fiscal 2015 to help the Army Corps of Engineers shore up the temporary coffer dam and the additional $29 million should help pay for the next phase of rock excavation within the lock chamber beneath the dam.
Don Getty, the Corps of Engineers’ project manager for the new Chickamauga lock, said work should resume by the Knoxville-based Rembco Geotechnical Contractors at the stalled lock in January.
After spending $180 million to design the new lock, reroute roads and build a temporary coffer dam, funding for the new and bigger lock at the Chickamauga Dam ran out in 2012 after the federal stimulus program ended. Since then, nearly all of the available funding in the Corps’ Inland Waterways Trust Fund has been allocated for new dams and locks at the Olmsted Dam on the Ohio River.
At the urging of Sen. Alexander and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., the funding formula was changed and the diesel fuel tax on barges was raised to help provide more money for projects like the Chickamauga and Kentucky lock replacements on the Tennessee River.
Those locks were originally built by the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s. But the 75-year-old Chickamauga lock is suffering from “concrete growth” in its rock aggregate, requiring aggressive maintenance and repairs just to keep in operation.
The new Chickamauga lock also would be able to handle bigger and more barges to help expedite river shipments.
“Thanks to work previously done to restructure the Inland Waterways Trust Fund and the increase in the Trust’s funding there should be enough money to continue work on the Chickamauga lock that was started earlier this year,” Fleischmann said.
The new and bigger lock is projected to end up costing $860 million and take another six or seven years of construction to complete.
The U.S. House and Senate are expected to vote on the Omnibus Appropriations bill today or Friday.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6340.