County Satisfied With Rural Legacy Grant Awards

SNOW HILL — While only receiving about half of the total funding requested, the Worcester County Commission is chalking up Rural Legacy Area (RLA) grant awards as a win this year, as the $1.6 million received should be more than enough to purchase several easements in the county.

Considering how thin total RLA funding was spread in Maryland, the $1.6 million does represent a strong showing for the county.

RLA funding for FY15 is broken into two separate awards, $1,060,000 for the Coastal Bays RLA and $600,000 for the Dividing Creek RLA.

“The Coastal Bays RLA is the largest award on the shore this year. This is a wonderful achievement for the local program,” Bob Mitchell, director of Environmental Programs, told the commission last week, “and Mrs. [Katherine] Munson, in collaboration with her state and local partners, has made this award a reality. We received $1,660,000 in local funding from our original request of $3,920,000, while competing against the rest of the state for grants from this program.”

Munson works as a planner for the county and also expressed enthusiasm at the level of RLA grants coming in for this year.

“Both of these grants are going to support the county’s Comprehensive Plan and land preservation plan which have identified some of these areas as key to our agricultural and natural resource-based economy,” she remarked.

RLA funding for FY15 will be used to purchase conservation easements, between one and two for Dividing Creek and two to four for the Coastal Bays. Worcester was the independent applicant for the Coastal Bays funding but partnered with Somerset County and The Nature Conservancy as a joint sponsor for Dividing Creek.

While the county fell short of the $3.9 million requested, the commission was satisfied with the $1.6 million received. Across the state of Maryland only $16.03 million was available for RLA grants for FY15. That money was divided up across 18 individual qualified areas.

The overall goal of RLA is to protect areas such as agriculture, forestry as well as improving natural resources. Participation in the program is volunteer-based with willing sellers, of which there is a waiting list, working with the county to preserve their land with easements.

“It’s really impressive the way the map looks. These are really areas that we wanted to work,” said Commissioner Judy Boggs after reviewing some of the properties in the Coastal Bays and Dividing Creek locations that the county is evaluating as a target for this year’s RLA funds.