WALTERBORO--Colleton County officials will find out Wednesday the amount of money they will be expected to contribute to the U.S. Highway 17 widening project.

What the county pays likely will hinge on two things: the amount it can afford to pay and whether 100-foot buffers that will restrict access to landowners' property will be part of the project.

"We have a feeling the buffer requirement is going to get snuck in the back door at the end," County Council Chairman Steve Murdaugh said.

Yet Murdaugh said the council will meet with representatives from the state Department of Transportation and Beaufort County to apply for funds from the state Infrastructure Bank.

He said they don't want to delay a project that has already been stalled for a decade.

In that time, dozens of people have been killed and hundreds more have been injured on the 22-mile stretch between Jacksonboro in Colleton County and Gardens Corner in Beaufort County.

The Infrastructure Bank was created to pay for large-scale transportation projects and usually asks local communities to share in the cost.

"We want to be good neighbors and do our part," Murdaugh said. "It's a question of whether we can afford it."

Murdaugh said a $50 million request from the bank could mean Beaufort and Colleton counties would be responsible for as much as a 10 percent match, or $5 million.

Beaufort County already has pledged $2 million to the widening project. Murdaugh said coming up with that kind of money would probably mean a large tax increase.

The full council will meet with the department at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday to discuss the project.

Murdaugh said he expects some on council to question why the county is expected to contribute to a federal highway that has a lot of traffic to and from Charleston.

He also expects council members to ask for the latest update on the buffers, which the council argues would render land useless. The state Department of Environmental Health and Control and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have asked for the buffers to protect the ACE Basin.

"The buffer requirement is definitely going to be an issue," Murdaugh said.

County leaders argue they have already given the area the strictest zoning designation it can to block strip malls.

"That land has been protected by the people of Colleton County and we don't need them to tell us what to do," said Councilman Joe Flowers. "That's the taking of someone's land and I'm against that."