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CLEAN
WATER MANAGEMENT TRUST FUND BOARD AWARDS $40.6 MILLION TO PROTECT WATER QUALITY, CONSERVE OPEN SPACE
RALEIGH -- The 21-member board of the Clean Water Management Trust Fund approved 41 requests totaling $40.6 million for land acquisition projects to protect water quality across the state at its August 11, 2008 meeting in Raleigh.
The projects will fund greenway acquisitions, project planning and the purchase of large tracts of land in areas across the state that are threatened by development. All of the funded projects will protect the state's surface waters from pollution.
Approved grants include:
- $2 million to the Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust to help purchase land to protect Big Horse Creek in Ashe County in the New River Basin;
- $3.2 million to the Triangle Land Conservancy to help purchase the Brumley Tract to help protect Stony Creek in Orange County in the Neuse River Basin;
- $3.5 million to The Nature Conservancy to help purchase the King Tract in Hickory Nut Gorge to help protect water quality in Rutherford County in the Broad River Basin;
- $3 million to the Catawba Lands Conservancy to help complete the Carolina Thread Trail.
A complete list of the grants awarded Monday is on line here.
The CWMTF trustees considered 87 requests for approximately $91.7 million in water quality grants for acquisition projects in communities all across the state. Most of the grants that were not funded after Monday’s meeting will receive consideration again at the trustee’s November meeting in Raleigh.
The grant requests were submitted for consideration on February 1, 2008. Trustees will review requests for stormwater and restoration, wastewater treatment improvements and additional land acquisition grants during their September, October and November board meetings.
The CWMTF was established 1996 to help finance projects that enhance or restore degraded waters, protect unpolluted waters, and/or contribute toward a network of riparian buffers and greenways for environmental, educational, and recreational benefits.
CWMTF estimates that over $17 billion is needed to protect and restore water quality in North Carolina.
The independent, CWMTF Board of Trustees has full responsibility over the allocation of moneys from the fund.
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For more information,
contact Lisa Schell at 919/716-0057.
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