The Army Corps of Engineers will halt its ecosystem restoration project on Nine Mile Run in lower Frick Park because the federal funding stream for it has dried up.

As a result, a muddy, unfinished construction area will likely remain dormant until a new federal spigot is turned on.

That won't happen until after Oct. 1, the beginning of the federal government's new fiscal year, said Lenna Hawkins, the corps' manager for the $7.7 million Nine Mile Run Project.

"The Nine Mile Run project did not get the amount of money we expected this year," said Hawkins, who had requested $1.6 million for fiscal 2004 but only got about $400,000.

She said the contractor, Meadville Land Service Inc., of Meadville, Crawford County, will probably pull out by the end of the month.

Dick Wilford, a foreman at Frick Park, said the shutdown of the project came as a big surprise, is a big inconvenience and increases the potential for erosion.

"It impedes us from doing our jobs," said Wilford.

For example, he said, city workers can't even drive a dump truck up to empty the trash cans in an off-leash dog area in lower Frick.

"We are talking about using golf carts and making two or three trips," he said.

Wilford also is a member of the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association, which was created in 2001 to support efforts to improve the environment by altering the flow of the stream and two tributaries of Nine Mile Run, which has long been a conduit for storm water and sewage flowing to the Monongahela River.

Federal money for the project is authorized under Section 206 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1996. Hawkins said that funding stream was capped at $25 million, nationwide, but "no one saw it coming."

"When we put Nine Mile Run up for bid, we thought we had the money," she said.

The restoration project began two years ago. The federal government's share of the entire project is $5 million. The city already did its share, $2.7 million, building a soccer field in lower Frick Park, installing a culvert where the stream alignment would be changed and making other improvements.

She estimated that about $2 million in federal funds has been spent and another $3 million is needed.