 Somervell was chosen to head the project but although President Franklin D. Roosevelt allocated emergency funds for the canal in 1935, opponents of the canal protested that it would cause seawater to seep into the groundwater, and work was stopped a year later.In the meantime, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 1 August 1935.In 1935, Somervell was appointed as head of the Works Project Administration in New York City.