Rainwater Basin Joint Venture Receives Grants for Habitat Restoration
June 22nd, 2009
May 26, 2009
The Rainwater Basin Joint Venture will receive over $600,000 funding from the Nebraska Environmental Trust this year for four major grants supporting wildlife habitat projects in the Rainwater Basin.
The Wetland Habitat Restoration and Protection grant will contribute to a wide variety of habitat projects throughout the Rainwater Basin region, including incentive programs that assist private landowners with water and vegetation management in wetlands on their property. The first-year award for this grant is $400,000, with a potential for an additional $400,000 in the second year.
A Working Landscape Conservation Easement grant has been funded in the amount of $183,489. This grant will help Joint Venture partners restore and permanently protect wetlands and adjacent grasslands in the Rainwater Basin region.
Two grants are receiving second-year funding. The South-Central Nebraska LIDAR project uses laser technology to collect topographical data for the central Platte and Republican rivers, as well as the Rainwater Basin region, where precise delineation of watersheds helps optimize wetland restorations. The LIDAR project receives $28,000 this year, in addition to $560,000 awarded in 2008. The Hiebner Working Landscape Easement project, to restore and permanently protect 300 acres of wetlands and grasslands in Fillmore County, will receive $30,300 in addition to last year’s $316,174 award.
Since 1992, the Nebraska Environmental Trust, with revenues from the Nebraska Lottery, has provided over $142 million in grants to 1,134 projects across the state to preserve, protect, and restore Nebraska’s natural resources. Rainwater Basin Joint Venture coordinator Andy Bishop remarked that grants received from the Environmental Trust make it possible for the Joint Venture and its partners to apply for federal grants that require non-federal matching contributions. “We’re able to leverage each dollar from the Environmental Trust by attracting federal grant dollars to Nebraska, at a one-to-one match,” said Bishop. “The Nebraska Environmental Trust’s support helps us do larger projects that would not have been possible in the past.
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