Grants Being Sought by City for Whitewater, Trails

From the Friday, December 15, 2006 Kentucky Standard

By Bob White

Bardstown will send a representative to Elizabethtown Thursday to learn more about grants to aid the Beech Fork whitewater park project and trail projects being considered for implementation.

During Tuesday’s Bardstown City Council meeting City Administrator Larry Green informed city leaders of two federal grants being offered through the Governor’s Office of Local Development.

The funds being offered could be used to improve the riverbank of Beech Fork at the old rock dam near U.U. 31E bridge where a whitewater feature has been proposed.

“It won’t help with the rebuilding of the dam, but it may be useful in building a trail to the river,” Green said.

Green said funding could also be used for a connector trail between Beech Fork and Bardstown Community Park.

More information about the Land and Water Conservation Funds and the Recreational Trails grants will be learned during a Thursday meeting at the Lincoln Trail Area Development District office in Elizabethtown, Green said.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund offers 50-50 matching grants of $5,000 to $50,000. The average amount awarded to applicant communities in Kentucky last year was $39,951, according to Samantha Cool, Public Information Officer for the Governor’s Office of Local Development.

Another project Land and Water Conservation Funds could be used for is disc-golf, Cook said.

“We have funded several of those in recent years,” she said.

A committee of local tourism officials and local disc-golfers recently began looking for a place to construct a disc-gold course near Bardstown.

The Recreational Trails grant offers sums of between $2,500 and $100,000 to communities for trail projects.

Recreational Trails grants also require matching funds from the applicants, but the percentage of matching funds varies.

The average amount awarded to applicant communities for Recreational Trails funds last year was $30,565, Cook said.

Recreational Trails awards could also be applied to the whitewater feature construction Cook said, since the Recreational Trails program make funds available for water-trails.

Cook described the projects being talked about in Bardstown as “very interesting.”