Tri-County planning staff to apply for Growing Greener funds for five watershed projects

Tri-County Regional Planning Commission staff said June 2 they will submit a Growing Greener grant application to pay for preliminary engineering on five stream-restoration and water-quality projects and asked the commission to authorize the county-level applicant to sign and submit the applications.

Jerry, a staff member, told commissioners the projects were identified in a FEMA-funded study of priority projects and that the Growing Greener program (administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) offers grants with no local match requirement in many cases. “Growing Greener has a $500,000 limit. We don't think that we would get that, but we would think if we can get perhaps some hundred thousand dollars, we could do a joint project where we would hire an engineer to look at each one of these projects to give us the next scope to move forward,” Jerry said.

The staff presentation said the five projects are at an early stage: the application would fund preliminary design and engineering to develop scopes for larger construction grants. Jerry said project costs for eventual construction could run “a couple hundred thousand dollars each,” and that Growing Greener was attractive because some of the candidate projects are in low- and moderate-income or disadvantaged areas and could be eligible for zero local match.

Commissioner Gary moved to authorize staff to proceed with the Growing Greener application and have the commission chair sign required materials; the motion was seconded and approved by voice vote. Jerry and other staff said the application deadline is at the end of the month.

Why it matters: staff said the preliminary engineering would create the information needed to pursue larger construction grants for stream restoration and water-quality improvements. If funded, the work would produce designs the municipalities and Tri-County could use in later grant rounds.

Staff noted there is no guarantee of a grant award and that the Growing Greener program’s maximum award and priorities mean the application may be competitive. Jerry said the request would be limited to engineering and design rather than construction to get a better sense of needed scopes and costs.

The commission’s vote was recorded as a voice vote; no roll-call tally was read into the record.