Will Palin Use $73 Million "Nowhere" Cash?

Yep.

From Pro Publica, via Avi Zenilman: A Palin's transportation department official in Alaska says his department still plans to use $73 million in federal cash originally slated for the Bridge to Nowhere.

PP's Paul Kiel reports:

"What the media isn't reporting is that the project isn't dead," Roger Wetherell, spokesman for Alaska’s Department of Transportation, said. In a process begun this past winter, the state’s DOT is currently considering (PDF) a number of alternative solutions (five other possible bridges or three different ferry routes) to link Ketchikan and Gravina Island.

The DOT has not yet developed cost estimates for those proposals, Wetherell said, but $73 million of the approximately $223 million Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) earmarked for the bridge in 2005 has been set aside for the Gravina Access Project.