Nearly $22 million has been appropriated for the Island Creek widening flood project, U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd announced yesterday.

More than $28 million is coming to West Virginia as part of federal legislation to control flooding across the nation.

Island Creek residents have been hit with six major floods in the past 30 years.

Logan County Commission President Art Kirkendoll, who has been working with state and federal officials on the project, said he's glad Island Creek will finally be widened.

"It's great and just what we were hoping for," Kirkendoll said. "This project kept getting in the appropriations each year and kept getting kicked back. When we first started, it was a $15 million to $16 million project and I kept saying the longer it kept getting dragged out, it would cost more and more.

“But, at the end of the day, getting it done is a great thing."

Kirkendoll said the property acquisitions have already began and the widening could begin early next year.

The project will widen a 1/8-mile section of Island Creek. The widening will create a suction effect in the creekbed to help keep water flowing swiftly, rather than backing up and overflowing its banks, Kirkendoll said.

The legislation includes $1.4 million for levees and other flood control measures on the Greenbrier River in Marlinton. A similar amount was approved for a project on the Mud River at Milton.

Nearly $3 million will go to relocating McDowell County businesses and homes along the Tug Fork River.

Another $807,000 will finance studies on flood control on the Cherry River at Richwood and the Upper Guyandotte River.