Grants

The Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) promotes coordination between NRCS and its partners to deliver conservation assistance to producers and landowners through partnership agreements, program contracts, or conservation easement agreements.
Project applications are now being accepted for locally driven, public-private partnerships that improve the nation’s water quality (including drinking water sources), combat drought, enhance soil health, support wildlife habitat, and protect agricultural viability.

This pilot project is an approach to providing funding for urgent, unforeseen situations on designated water trails that impede or impair access, create unsafe conditions/ safety concerns for paddlers or others who want to access the water trail, affect safe ingress/egress from the water trail, etc.

Such situations could include, but are not limited to,

• Storm-induced scouring, flooding, debris impoundments that severely impact navigation.
• Fallen trees or other large obstructions caused by a storm or other event that will prohibit or severely impact an imminent sojourn, paddle fest, race, etc. 
• A situation where there is a major in-water litter/trash issue immediately prior to a planned community event, paddle, race, etc.
• A situation in which an access improvement/ enhancement project was funded and is almost complete, but an unforeseen event or situation threatens to prevent the project from being completed without a small infusion of extra funding.
• The destruction of a safety or wayfinding sign at an access point, if the sign was critical to orienting paddlers or providing critical information about a river hazard, portage, dam, 

In short, the situation must be caused by an “unanticipated” event, or one that could not be reasonably planned for. A known ongoing situation that was simply not addressed in time would not qualify. This funding should be viewed as a “last resort.” 

If the applicant is not the Water Trail Manager, applicant must contact the Water Trail Manager before applying to this funding. Additional, all applicants must contact one of the Water Trail Program Partners at PEC, DCNR or PFBC prior to applying.

The new AML/AMD Grant Program that began in the fall of 2022 will continue with three more application rounds in 2023. The Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation is authorized through the United States Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to issue grants to eligible applicants for the purpose of AML reclamation and AMD treatment or abatement. The Bureau will be accepting applications for projects that reclaim abandoned coal mines or address mine drainage from abandoned coal mines during the following open application periods:

2023 Application Round 2 – July 3, 2023, through 11:59 p.m. August 25, 2023
2023 Application Round 3 – October 2, 2023, through 11:59 p.m. December 2, 2023

Projects eligible to receive a grant through the AML/AMD Grant Program must reclaim or enhance AML sites that pose a threat to the environment and/or public health and safety, as specified in SMCRA. Sites must be determined eligible by BAMR, entered into both DEP’s and OSMRE’s AML inventory systems, and, in most cases, associated with a coal mine that was abandoned prior to August 3, 1977.

The Pennsylvania Association of Conservation Districts was awarded a $100,000 Community Conservation Partnerships Program Grant from the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) to offer Lawn Conversion training and mini-grants to Pennsylvania’s conservation districts. The lawn conversion program will help the Commonwealth achieve a goal of planting 5,000 acres of upland forest and 5,000 acres of meadow by 2025.

The Lawn Conversion for Conservation Districts training recording and a copy of Ryan Davis’s presentation are available on the PA Clean Water Academy. Click here to access the course page. (You will need to be logged in.) It is recommended that you complete the training before applying for the sub-grant.

Questions may be directed to Holly Miller, PACD Program Manager, at hmiller@pacd.org or (717) 794-6105.