Upper Delaware Council awards 2007 Technical Assistance Grants

NARROWSBURG, NY — The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) has awarded $25,400 in Technical Assistance Grants (TAG) for eight projects that will further goals and address needs identified in the River Management Plan for the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River.

The latest grant round brings the cumulative amount to $609,692 that the UDC has given to its member municipalities since 1988. In all, 173 projects have been funded through the TAG program.

Combined requests this year totaled $41,297, competing for an available $25,000 funding pool, to which $400 was added on the recommendation of the UDC’s Project Review Committee.

Member municipalities that submitted applications by the July 31 deadline sent representatives to the August 28 Project Review Committee to explain their proposals and answer questions. The full council approved the slate at its September 6 monthly meeting.

Grants are available for research, planning and studies conducted by the UDC’s eight member New York towns, three Pennsylvania townships and the encompassing river corridor counties. They can provide seed money for a municipality to embark on a project without having to dip into local tax dollars.

Wayne County, PA’s four townships of Berlin, Buckingham, Damascus, and Manchester would be eligible to participate in this grant program if those townships joined the council. For more information on the program, contact UDC senior resource specialist David B. Soete at udcsoete@hvc.rr.com or by calling 845/252-3022.

2007 recipients

• Town of Lumberland, NY-$6,500 to review and update the Town of Lumberland’s Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Law to address recent growth while protecting and identifying critical areas of the town.

• Town of Hancock, NY-$5,000 to revise the 1986 Town of Hancock Subdivision Law and to develop driveway and road standards, to ensure the proper construction of infrastructure and maintain better control over development.

• Town of Tusten, NY-$4,500 to convert Town of Tusten laws, ordinances, and archival records into an electronic format and make these documents publicly available on the town’s website at www.tusten-narrowsburg.org.

• Town of Lumberland, NY-$2,500 to prepare a written and pictorial document chronicling over 100 years of history of the Eldred Central School District, located in the Towns of Lumberland and Highland.

• Town of Delaware, NY-$2,200 to purchase, install, and conduct training on new Building and Codes Enforcement Software, to facilitate a more efficient and modern management system.

• Town of Cochecton, NY-$2,000 to survey and map the boundary lines of the Cochecton Town Hall property in order to situate the town’s highway department operations in such a manner as to prevent potential pollutants from entering the watershed.

• Shohola Township, PA-$1,700 to identify potential, safe, and convenient public access areas along the Delaware River within Shohola Township for boating, fishing, swimming and emergency situations.

• Town of Fremont, NY-$1,000 to print 750 copies of the Town of Fremont’s Comprehensive Master Plan.