Foley council approves submittal of projects to RESTORE for grant consideration

By Jessica Vaughn
Posted 10/18/21

FOLEY - The Foley city council has approved the submittal of multiple projects to the RESTORE portal for grant consideration. The RESTORE portal is scheduled to close on Friday, Oct. 15.

“There …

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Foley council approves submittal of projects to RESTORE for grant consideration

Posted

FOLEY - The Foley city council has approved the submittal of multiple projects to the RESTORE portal for grant consideration. The RESTORE portal is scheduled to close on Friday, Oct. 15.

“There are three buckets,” said Environmental Director Leslie Gahagan. “One of the buckets of money is for land acquisition and conservation. We will be applying for $9 million to acquire additional property south of Graham Creek Preserve, and then the remainder of that would be for restoration and property enhancements.”

If the grant is awarded and the project approved, it would be handled in phases. Gahagan said one phase would revolve around the land acquisition and the purchase of the additional property. The second phase would center around using the remaining funds for improvement and restoration projects.

“Another submittal is a water quality project, that is for bucket two,” said Gahagan. “That project would be approximately $3.5 million and would be a stormwater restoration project that would encompass the areas that flood along Juniper Street behind Tanger southward, and we are looking at different properties, anything south of County Road 20 and kind of north of Highway 59, to acquire property to take that tributary that currently flows under what is known as Kendallbrook Subdivision area and do another restoration there like we’re doing at Barner Road.”

“If we have a comprehensive program with GOMESA, RESTORE, NFWF and all these different pots of money, that will help us with these many drainage projects,” said Mayor Ralph Hellmich. “It’s not just about helping the drainage, it’s also making sure that we have sent good water south and whatever direction it leaves Foley.”