IARN — Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley provided an important update Wednesday morning regarding funding for lock and dam modernization projects along the upper Mississippi River.
During his weekly press call with farm reporters, Grassley said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced an $829.1 million investment thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law.
‘That will provide much-needed updates to the locks and dams on the Mississippi River, some of them I would imagine are 80 years old,” said Grassley. “When I voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill – and I was one of 19 Republicans to support that bill – I was voting for exactly this type of federal support for the critical infrastructure that Iowans depend on.”
“I always get a question about ‘when are you guys going to fix the locks and dams?’ I always try to say, prior to this bill, that’s why we increased the diesel fuel for barges – probably about 10 years ago – to do that. But that still wasn’t satisfactory to the people that would ask me the question, so I hope this $829 million will add to it.”
The funding – part of the Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program (NESP) – will be used to complete the modernization of Lock & Dam 25, including the construction of a new 1,200-foot lock, as well as an environmental restoration project at Lock & Dam 22 and other small-scale ecosystem and navigation projects in the region.
Originally authorized in the Water Resources Development Act of 2007, NESP will modernize and expand seven outdated locks at the most congested lock locations along the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers as well as fund nearly $2 billion in ecosystem restoration.
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.
Photo Courtesy of Senator Grassley’s Office
