A little more than a year ago, officials in Washington County said they were "disgusted" with the lack of progress in reopening Dutch Fork Lake in Donegal.

County commissioners, state legislators, state Fish and Boat Commission officials and others were pessimistic about ever seeing the popular 91-acre man-made lake restored to its former glory.

They were even more dejected when local officials last year denied a request for slots revenue from the Meadows Racetrack & Casino to be used to help pay the $4 million to $6 million cost of rehabilitating the lake, which was drained after Hurricane Ivan damaged its emergency spillway in 2004.

But last week, officials were elated to learn that Dutch Fork had been approved for a $4 million grant from something few local officials had heard of ­-- H2O PA.

Financed through an $800 million bond issue, the H2O fund was created last year by the state Legislature and will be paid for with slots gaming revenue as new casinos open.

The fund is to be primarily used for critical water and sewer projects, storm water projects, flood control projects and high-hazard dam repairs, such as Dutch Fork.

A high-hazard designation gives priority to dams that could cause significant property damage if they failed. Although the area around Dutch Fork Lake isn't highly populated, several homes are downstream from the lake.

The fund also will help pay for two other projects: $1.8 million to rehabilitate Canonsburg Lake in North Strabane and Peters, and $2.4 million to repair Wisecarver Reservoir in Franklin, Greene County.

Both of those waterways have remained open even though each is in critical need of repairs. Private funding also is expected for those projects.

"I was pleasantly surprised," said Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi of the Dutch Fork grant. "I thought it was going to be an uphill fight."

Mr. Maggi had a good reason for thinking that: County and local legislators, including state Sen. J. Barry Stout, D-Bentleyville, and state Rep. Peter Daley, D-California, had tried many funding options over the years.

The Fish and Boat Commission, which owns the lake, said it didn't have the money to pay for repairs, and the federal government turned down a request to use the Army Corps of Engineers or the National Guard to help with the work.

"We really tried on a lot of different fronts," Mr. Maggi said.

Several public meetings have been held since 2004, during which local officials were pounded by residents clamoring for the lake's restoration.

The Fish and Boat Commission had previously suggested that the only feasible way to restore the lake would be through a combination of local and state funding, not an idea that went over well in an area where the primary attraction of the lake was the fact that it was free recreation.

Mr. Stout said about $800,000 of the grant would be used for engineering and permitting, and said the remaining portion would be used to fully restore the lake. No timeline has been set.

Environmentalists said repairing Dutch Fork -- created in 1959 by damming the Dutch Fork branch of the Buffalo Creek -- will not only resurrect a popular local recreational asset, it will also restore a major water resource and wetlands habitat for birds and other wildlife.

"We are very, very pleased," said Jim Powell, chairman of the Buffalo Creek Watershed Association. "It's a very valuable asset to southwestern Pennsylvania, not just for fishing and boating."