At least 450 family farms in the Ohio River Valley that are under water after a dam renovation caused mass flooding may finally be getting a life preserver, The Post has learned.
The $3 billion renovation of the Olmsted Locks and Dam on the Ohio River was completed in 2018 by the US Army Corps of Engineers, but an unintended consequence was the flooding of 70,000 acres of soybean farmland in Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri — turning some multi-generational farms into lakes.
Roughly 450 farmers filed lawsuits in 2018 and 2021 seeking damages for destroyed land and crops. But President Biden’s Department of Justice contested the suits, delaying financial relief.
Sources told The Post an executive order ending the DOJ’s contestation of the claims and granting aid to the farmers is currently being considered in President Trump’s West Wing.
“My farm, which has been in my family for nearly 70 years, has been absolutely rendered useless by the Olmsted Dam,” one Kentucky farmer told The Post, asking for anonymity because he fears reprisals.
“We are praying President Trump comes in and saves our farms so we can get repaid for our past crop losses and maybe relocate and keep farming on higher ground,” he said.
“Farmers have had Trump’s back and we have faith he has ours.”
The renovation of the 1929 dam, which is just 17 miles east of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers on the border of Illinois and Kentucky, began in 1988 and was aimed at relieving a commercial shipping bottleneck on the Ohio River.
The Army Corps of Engineers project took 20 years longer than anticipated and finished $2 billion over budget.
The US Army Corps of Engineers declined to comment on the lawsuit or the alleged miscalculations in the construction of the Olmsted Locks and Dam that resulted in flooding.
A payout for the hundreds of litigant farmers could exceed $1 billion, which would be taken out of the Treasury Department’s Judgment Fund, according to sources.
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