Governor Kathy Hochul has announced that the State Department of Environmental Conservation's Climate Smart Communities Grant program is awarding more than $11.6 million to 25 municipalities across the state. Funding helps municipalities afford projects that will often save taxpayer dollars over the long term while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping communities adapt to the ongoing impacts of climate change, including reducing flood risk, relocating or retrofitting critical infrastructure, and increasing community resilience to extreme weather.
"The significant funding under New York's Climate Smart Communities Program is critical in supporting local efforts to protect residents and infrastructure from the effects of climate change," Governor Hochul said. "We continue to see increasingly extreme weather each year and these grants help empower locally-driven, bold action to help meet New York's ambitious climate goals while setting an example for other municipalities to follow."
Among the municipalities receiving funds will be the Town of Brookhaven, which will be allotted $910,000 for the Bellhaven Flood Mitigation Project.
The town of Brookhaven will utilize these funds to increase the resiliency of the end of Bellhaven Road. This road is regularly impacted by cyclic tides and storm surges. Project work includes raising the road, providing additional storage for stormwater, and increasing areas of natural absorption. Best management practices that incorporate green infrastructure, water quality, increased retention, and disconnection of direct discharges will be utilized.
Established in 2016, the Climate Smart Communities Grant Program is a competitive 50/50 matching grant program for municipalities to implement projects focused on climate change adaptation and greenhouse gas mitigation. Project types also include certain planning and assessment projects that are part of a strategy to achieve Climate Smart Communities certification. Of the total grant funds awarded this round under the implementation and certification categories respectively, 36 percent was awarded to implementation projects located in disadvantaged communities that face a disproportionate burden of environmental pollution, and 66 percent was awarded to certification projects by municipalities that contain a disadvantaged community, as identified by the Climate Justice Working Group's draft criteria.
The program also supports the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which requires New York to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. Since the Climate Smart Communities Grant Program's inception, DEC has awarded more than $50 million to municipalities in support of local climate mitigation and adaptation projects.