A group that maintains Lock and Dam No. 3 on the Green River outside Rochester is receiving a $3 million grant to repair the structure.

John Dix, secretary for the Rochester Dam Regional Water Commission, said the dam’s issues don’t present an immediate danger but still need attention. The underwater, cradle-shaped network of rocks and timbers that supports the dam is deteriorating, which Dix said is to be expected for a dam constructed in 1838, he said.

“Some of those timbers have shifted and the rock has shifted and timbers rot over time,” he said.

Getting the grant would have been impossible before passage in 2016 of the Water Resources Development Act, which called for ownership of several dams on the Green River to be transferred from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to local entities.

Dix said the Corps of Engineers hasn’t been maintaining Lock and Dam No. 3, which is crucial to many people in the region because it creates a pool from which Ohio, Butler and Muhlenberg counties’ water utilities draw water.

“The Corps has said to us over the years that they are not in the water supply business,” he said. “They’ve just let them waste away. They’ve had no interest in maintaining them.”

Mike Turner, an ecologist with the Corps of Engineers, said the Corps can’t legally get grant funding for maintaining or altering Lock and Dam Nos. 3 through 6 because they are no longer used to help ships move up and down the Green River.

“There was no reason for us to maintain the dams because they were no longer being used for their congressionally-authorized purpose, which was navigation,” he said.

About a year ago, the Corps of Engineers entered into a 25-year lease with the commission that allows the commission to maintain the dam, Turner said.

Before ownership of the lock and dam can be transferred, the Corps of Engineers must complete a condition of property survey on the dam and establish a memorandum of understanding with the State Historic Preservation Board, he said.

Turner expects ownership to be legally ready for transfer next summer, he said.

The $3 million grant the commission received comes from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, according to a news release from the office of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Dix said repairs to the dam are expected to cost roughly $4 million.

He said he doesn’t know where the rest of the funding will come from but is confident the commission can procure it. “With this first portion, we feel pretty good we’ll be able to secure this through loans or whatever else,” he said.

Butler County Judge-Executive David Fields said a regional effort to have the dam renovated for almost a decade had repeatedly failed to move forward because the Corps of Engineers owned the dam.

Fields said he’s excited about the prospect of the dam being strengthened and stabilized.

“It is tremendous because that is our water supply,” he said. “It’s nothing but a positive for our county and it’s the same for Ohio County.”

– Follow reporter Jackson French on Twitter @Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.