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Corps to invest $58 million in new Mon River lock at Charleroi

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will invest $58 million in major construction work ongoing at Locks and Dam No. 4 in Charleroi.

The money will be added to $9 million in federal money already approved to create a second locking chamber at the dam, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey announced Monday.

“That all relates to the river chamber at Charleroi,” corps spokesman Jeffrey Hawk said.

The corps has been working for decades on improving its locks and dams along the lower Monongahela River between Charleroi and Braddock. A new dam was constructed at Braddock as the corps prepares to remove an aging lock and dam at Elizabeth. The work will eventually require a large-scale river-bottom dredging project between Charleroi and Braddock to create a navigational channel deep enough to accommodate the barge industry.

The $58 million investment “will herald a generational change to the region’s waterways infrastructure and provide a stable base of funding for the future,” Casey, D-Pa., stated in a news release.

“Making a significant investment now will move the project forward, thereby spurring economic growth and job creation in the region for years to come,” Casey wrote in a recent letter he sent to the Army’s assistant secretary of civil works, Jo-Ellen Darcy, seeking more investment in Charleroi.

The project on the lower Mon was designed to replace a crumbling river infrastructure, parts of which were built atop wooden foundations.

“If the waterways system fails, business will suffer and industry would see a significant increase in the cost of moving goods, which will drive up prices and harm the economy,” Casey said.

He estimated that 200,000 jobs are tied to the rivers in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

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