By Erik Potter, Post-Tribune staff writer
The final funding piece in the decades-long effort to protect homes along the Little Calumet River from flooding got an initial nod of approval Tuesday.
A committee of the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority recommended that the full RDA board approve the $6 million funding request to complete the final two stages of the $200 million flood control project.
The $6 million would allow the local project leaders, the Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission, to qualify for the remaining federal funds reserved for the project and finish construction by the end of 2009.
The request represents some new territory for the RDA, as the Little Calumet levee project is not one of the four projects specifically named in the state law that created the group, nor is it contained in the RDA's comprehensive plan.
However, Dan Gardner, director of the Little Calumet Commission, argued that the project fits squarely in the fifth area mentioned in state law: economic development.
"At its heart, this is an urban infrastructure project," Gardner said, stressing the benefits of opening up former flood plains for economic development and freeing up money that currently goes to buy flood insurance for use in the local economy.
The Little Calumet request reaches the RDA because the state funded only $2 million of the $8 million the commission requested to finish construction, leaving a $6 million gap to fill.
With another two years remaining before the next state budget cycle, both Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and Democratic U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Merrillville, signed on to a letter to the RDA requesting that the group front the remaining $6 million so the project could move forward, with the promise that the state would reimburse the money later on.
The RDA unanimously sent the request forward with the condition that some framework for a repayment plan be worked out.
If that plan can be worked out quickly, the RDA could approve the project next week at its November board meeting. If not, it will wait until January.
In other business, the committee recommended that the full board approve a $2 million funding request for an express bus service line from Valparaiso to Chicago, though committee members want to see more details about how the plan will work.
The service is designed to be an incubator for the proposed South Shore rail line extension to Valparaiso, building demand in the area for a mass transit alternative to the existing South Shore line.