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Resilience office details land conservation purchases and outside leverage, cites $50M coalition CPRG award
Summary
The Office of Resilience reviewed recent conservation acquisitions, outlined leveraged funding for specific tracts and said a multi‑state Carbon Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) coalition will bring roughly $50 million to the agency and about $39 million to The Nature Conservancy for regional conservation work.
Office of Resilience staff briefed the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee on recent land acquisitions, leverage from partner funding and a new multi‑state grant award that will support conservation across watersheds.
Alex Butler, resilience director and a master's‑level hydrologist, described how the agency used watershed mapping to prioritize conservation for flood mitigation, noting the value of preserving floodways, flood plains, wetlands and soils with high infiltration to ‘‘slow the water across the landscape.’’ He said the agency has watershed‑level mapping available and uses those priorities when evaluating acquisitions.
The agency listed recent contributions and leveraged sums for several projects: a contribution for the Black River / St. Andrews tract ($700,000); Tiger Oaks land acquisition ($20,000,000); a Catawba‑related Nesbitt purchase in Lancaster ($1,900,000); North Island in Berkeley ($1,000,000); Saluda Bluffs ($2,000,000); Waties Island (state contribution listed as $8,000,000, with private and federal partners also contributing); Snows Island ($14,000,000); River Forks ($5,000,000); and a Piedmont basin (RMS initiative) easement covering about 61 acres.
Senators pressed the agency to include leverage details in future reports so the General Assembly can see how state dollars are stretched by private, federal and other partner contributions. One committee member said the conservation bank model was purposely designed to reward projects that bring substantial match or in‑kind leverage to the state.
Nut graf: The agency told the subcommittee that demonstrating leverage is central to sustaining legislative support; officials also said they expect a major new federal implementation grant to add to state capacity for land conservation.
On federal coalition funding, agency staff said the Office of Resilience and partner states won an EPA Carbon Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) implementation award as part of a four‑state coalition. The total coalition award was described as approximately $421,000,000 for the multi‑state area; the agency said about $50,000,000 from that award will be subawarded directly to the state's conservation work and roughly $39,000,000 will go to The Nature Conservancy for regional conservation efforts.
The agency said it will provide the committee with documentation showing how each conservation project’s state contribution was leveraged by partner funding, grants and bargain‑sale appraisals.
Ending: Committee members asked to be kept on distribution for draft datasets (isolated wetlands and watershed mapping) and for the agency to supply leverage metrics in the project list used for future budget deliberations.
