The State Conservation Commission awarded more than $3.52 million in Dirt and Gravel Road Program grants to 61 county conservation districts and the PA Association of Conservation Districts awarded about $100,000 in Educational Mini-Grants for local projects to improve water quality and prevent pollution.

Dirt & Gravel Road

The funds will be used to implement environmentally sound maintenance practices geared to preventing water pollution from erosion, sedimentation and dust from the state’s more than 25,000 miles of dirt roads.

Districts administer the program at the local level and award grants for approved road projects. The projects are proposed by local road maintenance entities, reviewed for appropriateness by a local four-member Quality Assurance Board, and considered for approval by the county conservation district board of directors.

Created by Act 3 of 1997, the Dirt and Gravel Road Maintenance Program provides financial incentives for implementing pollution prevention techniques that can impact state waterways.

Training and research on dirt and gravel road environmental issues is also conducted through the Penn State Center for Dirt and Gravel Roads.

Nonpoint source pollution, like that coming from dirt roads, stream banks, storm water, agricultural and abandoned mine runoff, is responsible for 88 percent of all impaired stream miles in Pennsylvania.

A complete list of grants awarded is available online.

Mini-Grants

The Educational Mini-Grants fund a variety of projects from a cattle crossing and fencing project in Adams County, to web-based delivery of nonpoint source strategies in Bedford County, to a wetland demonstration project at the Woodland Elementary School in Cameron County, to a natural and historic watershed management plan in Lancaster County, and a resources management tour in Wyoming County.

Browse the complete list of these creative projects online.

Funding for the grants is provided through the Department of Environmental Protection’s Chesapeake Bay Program and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Section 319 Program.

8/12/2005