LIVINGSTON MANOR, NY — A line in the latest New York State budget provides $300,000 in funding for environmental projects along the Upper Delaware River.

The group of organizations that pushed for that funding assembled in Livingston Manor on June 17 to celebrate its success, in front of a project of the type that the funding will help support.

The project, a stream-restoration project on Livingston Manor’s Little Beaver Kill, helped to stabilize that stream’s eroding banks, preventing sediment from washing further downstream.

The stream’s redesigned boundaries also helps with flooding, allowing flooding to occur in areas where people don’t live and keeping it away from areas where people do, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) biologist Carl Schwartz. That redirection is an important tool for climate resilience, he said.

USFWS is hoping to accept the funding that is available for projects like this, said Schwartz, but it needs projects in the area to fund.

According to Jeff Skelding, executive director of the Friends of the Upper Delaware River (FUDR), the coalition is still working on getting projects lined up. “It’s brave new territory.”

Much of the group’s work has focused on making it easier for projects to access the funding that is available. The $300,000 from New York State plays a part, offering matching funds for federal programs.

The group is also pushing for easier access from the federal side. The Delaware River Basin Conservation Act provides a significant amount of federal funding for the region. According to Kelly Knutson, the director of the Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed, the group is pushing to reduce the amount of local funds needed for a match to 10 percent in the act’s upcoming reauthorization, reducing the amount that local organizations would need to gather from non-federal sources.

The coalition is additionally looking to repeat the group’s success in getting $300,000 in funding in other states. “In a historic first, New York is leading on state-allocated match that will complement and support large-scale federal restoration projects… Alongside environmental partners, the coalition will call for similar investments from other basin states across the region,” said Knutson.