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Good news for the riverfront

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Photo By Hilly SchifferLock 4 in Franklin County is closed on the Kentucky River.

Breathing new life into Lock 4 on the Kentucky River will enhance riverfront development opportunities in Frankfort and keep local tourism director Joy Jeffries from thinking about retiring at 64, she says.

The Kentucky River Authority agreed Tuesday to spend $1.25 million repairing Lock 4 that is expected to give it another 10 to 15 years of life.

In her Frankfort/Franklin County Tourist Commission office Monday, Jeffries said, “This river is where my heart is.

“Development along the Kentucky River is going to be as significant to the Frankfort economy in the long term as having state government here. I really believe that.”

Jeffries told the Kentucky River Authority Tuesday afternoon about the importance of keeping the locks open between Frankfort and the Ohio River for recreational boating and tourism.

Last month, the KRA – concerned about protecting water supply and worried that someone could get hurt if a gate broke with a boat locking through it – voted to put barriers across Lock 4 at Frankfort and the three others between the capital city and Ohio River at Carrollton.

Tuesday, after much discussion, the board voted to reconsider that decision and to repair Lock 4 across from Jim’s Seafood.

The recommendation to repair the lock was made by KRA Executive Director Stephen Reeder.

KRA board member Donald Haney, who made the motion last month to put concrete barriers across the locks, said his notes showed he wanted to block the locks “as needed” but not necessarily right away.

Tuesday’s vote called for repairing Lock 4 and blocking the others as needed.

Putting a barrier across a lock costs $500,000.

Money for fixing Lock 4 comes from $17.5 million appropriated by the General Assembly that is being used to replace Lock and Dam No. 3 at Monterey. That project costs only $16.2 million and the extra money will be used to renovate Lock 4.

Before the unanimous vote, Jeffries said a $150,000 riverfront study funded by a state grant is undergoing final editing and a public meeting will be held in early November.

Jeffries said Kentucky State University, which bought the old Paul Sawyier Public Library, will have an interpretative science center at its Wapping Street campus and a $300,000, 50-passenger floating environmental science lab on the river.

“We have 60,000 school children to come here each year to see the capital and historic sites, and we’ll have that many more for the technology lab on the river,” Jeffries said.

She also said a fundraising effort is underway to try to buy a 10-passenger tourist boat to take people on historic tours of the river.

Being able to pass through Lock 4 is important for both KSU’s floating science lab, which is currently being built in Somerset and should be ready to launch next spring, and the other tourist boat, Jeffries said.

The vote on Lock 4 was followed by a vote to study the feasibility of repairing Lock 10 at Boonesborough State Park. That lock was closed several years ago and $800,000 had been budgeted for installing a concrete barrier there. The money for the barrier was taken out of the budget Tuesday.

After Tuesday’s meeting, Jeffries said, “I am so happy I can hardly contain myself. This is a good move for all of Kentucky today, not just Frankfort. Maybe this will help all of us realize what an incredible resource the Kentucky River is for the whole state.”

Frankfort tourism officials and boaters say they eventually would like to see all the locks reopened. But No. 9 at Valley View in Madison County, which holds Lexington’s water supply, has been replaced by a dam that has no lock.

No. 4 was the only lock that operated this year, but it was opened for only three weekends in September. Trees and other debris that washed into the river after last winter’s ice storm had clogged it.

Rodney Simpson, a Frankfort boater and co-chair of the Riverfront Development Committee, said Tuesday’s vote “is the first step in keeping the Kentucky River open to the Ohio River for recreation and navigation.

“I hope we can keep the momentum going forward.”

Jeffries said hotel records show when the locks were open, “five to eight groups of boaters from out of town would come here on a weekend. But it got to the point where people couldn’t depend on the locks being open, and that made it impossible for our office to market it to people in Louisville and Cincinnati.”

Frankfort Mayor Gippy Graham and City Manager Tony Massey attended Tuesday’s meeting and were pleased with the board’s decision to renovate Lock 4.

Graham said last month’s vote concerned him because “it seemed to put so much finality to stopping development on the river. Today’s action opens up the potential for development on the river. Now there’s hope.”

Massey said the riverfront development study is almost complete, “and having a navigable river is a key component of that development.”

The KRA gets most of its money from fees paid by utilities and companies that draw water from the river. Its policy is to spend that money on repairing dams to protect water supply but not on locks for recreational boating.

Franklin County Judge-Executive Ted Collins, a member of the KRA board, said while funds were identified Tuesday to repair Lock 4, “if an emergency occurred before repairs were made, we’d still have the option of installing a cut-off wall or barrier.

“As important as it is to have a functioning Lock 4, it’s just as important in an emergency situation to have a back-up plan to save the water supply for our community.”

Lock and Dam 4 holds the pool that provides Frankfort’s water supply.

Lock and Dam 3 holds the pool that a new Kentucky American Water plant under construction near Monterey will draw from to supplement Lexington’s water supply.