The Olmsted Locks and Dam Project on the Ohio River in Pulaski County is on firmer financial ground thanks to the federal budget deal Congress passed Wednesday.
Mike Braden is the U-S Army Corps of Engineers division chief with the Olmsted Locks and Dam Project:
" I went to engineering school, so I'm not an expert on congressional legislative lexicon, so I don't know if calling it an earmark is the appropriate thing..."
Braden says the new authorization of 2.9 billion dollars for the project mirrors a change request the Corps requested to finish the project, once they had bumped up against their original spending authorization of $775 million. That amount, Braden says, is in 1986 dollars and has been adjusted each year with inflation. $1.6 billion of the federal budget re-authorization has been spent thus far, with about $1.2 billion left to complete the project. Braden says the Corps was just a few weeks away from implementing a slowdown strategy on the project and terminating workers, mothballing equipment, and canceling procurement contracts." Braden says once the Olmsted project is completed, it will reap $640 million-dollars in net benefits to the nation on an annual basis. Now, with funding in place, Braden says the Corps is ahead of schedule to finish the project by 2020. The Olmstead project located between southern Illinois and western Kentucky is one of the largest construction projects in the country, considered essential but way over budget.