PROVIDENCE – The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and its partners have awarded $28.9 million in new grants for the restoration and protection of coastal areas nationwide, including $280,140 for the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council.
With $38.3 million in matching funds expected from all 35 of the grant recipients, the total for coastal conservation work nationwide is expected to reach $67.2 million, program officials confirmed Tuesday.
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In Rhode Island, the Coastal Resources Management Council is expected to contribute $347,028 in addition the $280,140 federal grant it received, for a total of $627,168. The program is titled “the Rhode Island Shorelines Adaptation and Habitat Enhancement Project Inventory.”
The money will used to create a complete inventory of potential shoreline adaptation projects within areas of Rhode Island identified as vulnerable to coastal erosion, flooding, and storm surge.
The project will complete designs and permit applications for a subset of projects and provide guidance to municipalities on shore adaptation work, program officials said.
The grants were made through the new National Coastal Resilience Fund. Congress provided some of the money through the National Oceans and Coastal Security Act. The grants were awarded through a partnership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and two corporate partners, Shell Oil Co. and TransRe.
In addition to federal money for the grants, both Shell and TransRe voluntarily contributed private funds for the grants, said National Fish and Wildlife Foundation spokesman Rob Blumenthal.
Shell Oil is a Houston, Tex.-based subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world’s largest oil companies located in the Netherlands. TransRe is the brand name for Transatlantic Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of Alleghany Corp., a reinsurance organization based in New York City.
Among the recipients of the inaugural National Coastline Resilience grants was the National Wildlife Federation for coastal conservation work slated for Massachusetts.
The federation will receive more than $1.2 million and contribute more than $1.3 million for a program total of more than $2.5 million. The money will be used to build and enhance resilience of the 25,000-acre Great March coastal habitat, New England’s largest saltwater marsh located in the Ipswich area of Boston’s North Shore.
The work will help protect critical community infrastructure. It will improve drainage of march pools, restore native vegetation, remove invasive species, and plant eelgrass to reduce erosion and improve channel stabilization, according to program officials.
Overall, about 170 applications were received for the grants, and the recipients and the amounts they received were based on the merits of the proposals, Blumenthal said.
Last year, a record $306.2 billion was spent in the U.S. on 16 weather events, breaking the previous record of $214.8 billion in 2005, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“For the communities and businesses all along America’s coastlines, storms and floods are worsening, seas are rising, and the infrastructure that props up our economy is aging,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said in a statement about the grants. “This new fund will provide support for those communities to protect their industries and way of life.”
Scott Blake is a PBN staff writer. Email at Blake@PBN.com
