Officials broke ground Monday at Holtwood Dam in southern Lancaster county for a project that has been a couple years or more than 70 years waiting, depending on how far back you look.  

The project, billed as a potential pioneering renewable energy undertaking, is expected to provide construction jobs for about 200 people and get about $100 million in help from the 2009 federal stimulus. 

It also is expected to more than double power output once completed.  

Construction actually began at the Susquehanna River facility near Maryland back in January, after PPL Corp. briefly mothballed it during the financial crisis beginning in 2008.  

So officials drove golden shovels into what plant manager Chris Porse called a "ceremonial pile of dirt" dumped at an overlook of Holtwood while construction vehicles scurried below.

Porse said Monday a national financial crisis also plagued the original Holtwood project in 1907. Backers had to draw investment money from Scotland and Canada to finally get it built, Porse said.

Two men involved in the project from that time, Herbert Holt and Edgar Wood, now have their names on the facility itself. And the impoundment behind the dam is named Lake Aldred in honor of another, John Aldred.

This time, PPL said a government incentive is helping.

PPL expects to get a roughly $100 million tax credit for the $434 million project through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, said Dustin Werthheimer, finance director of PPL Generation.  

Porse said an expansion of Holtwood in general terms has been on the table since around the 1930s. But only in recent times has it become economically feasible.  

Gov. Ed Rendell attended the ceremony and joked that he believes so much in hydroelectric power, and the Holtwood project in general, that he drove all the way from Harrisburg on some of the "crummiest" back roads to be there.  

Rendell also said he hopes the project is a kickoff for similar work across the country. America needs to be less dependent on foreign fossil fuels, he said.  

TIMELINE:

January 2008 -- PPL Corp. kicks off a plan to add 125 megawatts of electricity generation, or enough to power about 100,000 homes, to its Holtwood Dam facility in Lancaster County. 
December 2008 -- PPL pulls the plug, citing financial issues in the recession. 
April 2009 -- The company puts the project back online because of the federal stimulus passed earlier in the year. 
November 2009 -- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officially approves the expansion. 
January 2010 -- Preliminary construction begins at the Holtwood site. 
May 2010 -- Officials hold groundbreaking ceremony and expect to get about $100 million in tax credits to help fund the project.