Chattanooga’s biggest construction project is getting a record amount of money this year under a revised funding formula Congress adopted to help rebuild part of America’s infrastructure.
The lock being erected at the Chickamauga Lock in Chattanooga will receive $191 million in the current fiscal year to help complete the new and bigger passageway for barge traffic on the Tennessee River within the next four years. The Chickamauga Lock project is getting one of the biggest largest allocations of any of the 239 locks in the country, exceeded only by the new Soo lock being built between the U.S. and Canada in the upper peninsula of Michigan, which that state is helping to fund.
U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, the Chattanooga Republican who serves on the energy and water subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, said in his decade in Congress he has worked every year to first revive funding for the stalled Chickamauga replacement lock and now to provide nearly enough money for its completion.
“It took years and a lot of effort to change the funding formula and to make sure this project had a high priority, but I am proud to announce that with the $191 million in the fiscal 2021 budget we have attained almost full funding for the new lock project,” Fleischmann said during a visit to the lock Wednesday.
Staff Photo by Matt Hamilton / Rep. Chuck Fleischmann looks on as Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon speaks at the Chickamauga Dam on the Tennessee River on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021.The extra money should sustain work through at least 2023 and, with the proper additional funding, project manager Adam Walker said the new lock should be finished by 2025 – more than two decades after construction first began.