Aussie Ken Ham plans to build Noah’s Ark in Kentucky

Ark Park ... Ken Ham wants to build a 155-metre Noah’s Ark replica at his Creation Museum in Kentucky. 

AN AUSTRALIAN man’s long-stalled plans to build Noah’s Ark in the hills of Kentucky have been revived. 

Creation Museum founder Ken Ham, originally from Queensland, announced on Thursday that a municipal bond offering has raised enough money to begin construction on the Ark Encounter project, estimated to cost about $US73 million ($81.77 million). Groundbreaking is planned for May and the ark is expected to be finished by the summer of 2016.

Mr Ham said a high-profile evolution debate he had with American science educator and TV personality Bill Nye on February 4 helped boost support for the project.

Mr Nye said he was “heartbroken and sickened for the Commonwealth of Kentucky” after learning that the project would move forward. He said the ark would eventually draw more attention to the beliefs of Mr Ham’s ministry, which preaches that the Bible’s creation story is a true account, and as a result, “voters and taxpayers in Kentucky will eventually see that this is not in their best interest.”

The life-size boat is expected to cost more than $80 million to build.

Mr Ham’s Answers in Genesis ministry and the Creation Museum enjoyed an avalanche of news media attention during the debate, which focused on science and the Bible’s explanations of the origins of the universe.

Answers in Genesis unveiled the proposal in 2010 for a $US150 million theme park that would include the ark. But private donations to the project did not keep pace with the construction timeline, forcing its backers to delay the ark’s construction and divide the park development into phases. The bonds were offered last year by the city of Williamstown, site of the planned ark south of Cincinnati.
The wooden ark would have old-world details, such as wooden pegs instead of nails, straight-sawed timbers and plenty of animals — some alive, some robotic.

The Creation Museum opened in 2007 and has been criticised by scientists as an affront to evolution science. Mr Ham said on Thursday that two million visitors have entered the museum since it opened.