ROYALSTON — Royalston’s Selectboard voted this week to commit the town to funding its share of a federal BRIC (Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities) grant which had been sought by Royalston’s Emergency Management Director Jim Barclay.
“We applied two years ago,” he said, “and our application was the top one not approved. So, I simply resubmitted it with little or no changes. This grant is a request to do what’s called a hydraulic and hydrologic (H&H) study of the watershed here in Royalston, specifically focused between Priest and Lawrence (brooks) on the east side and the east fork of the Tully (Brook) on the west side. In simple terms it’s to figure out what that waterway would have done if we weren’t here.
“As long as I’ve been involved in emergency management, we have fought it — we have tried to isolate it from us — to protect the people from the environment. It doesn’t work. It’s going to go where it’s going to go.”
The application is seeking a $120,000 grant. The money would be used for a study to determine where the water in that watershed, which essentially lies between the Millers River and Tully Brook, wants to go.
“The result of the study,” Barclay explained, “would be to develop six actionable descriptions for how to fix crossings, where the water and our roads cross. And so, that’s a federal grant; we’ve been approved. But there is a 25% match, which comes out to $30,000, and the question is how are we going to cover that?”
Barclay said one option may be to apply multiple grants to this single project.
“I think we can cover that match with an MVP (Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness) action grant,” he said. “We’ve not received one and we’re high on their list, but we should be able to get an MVP action grant.
“If the feds come back and say, ‘Yeah, but you don’t have it yet — prove you’re going to get one,’ hell, I can’t prove I’m going to get any grant. It doesn’t work like that, and they know it doesn’t.”
Barclay said he has been in discussions with the MVP team at the state Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and has been told the application period doesn’t open until sometime in the spring of 2023. He went on to say he has already filed the town’s expression of interest and that it has positively received, adding that state monies can be used on federal grants. The MVP grant, Barclay said in an interview, would also require a town match of some kind.
“The other thing you could use to cover the entire match,” Barclay continued, “would be Chapter 90 funds. I’m not suggesting we do that, but this is a grant to figure out how we stop washouts and road destruction at six crossings.”
“If we get the MVP grant — I’m looking at between $50- and $100,00 — that let’s us tailor this project a bit more than otherwise. If we just go with the BRIC grant, it’s kind of set in concrete … what you’re going to get done. But if we had an MVP grant on top of that, we would tailor that, so we would have exactly the results we want out of those six projects.”
That, he said, would give the town a better strategy for addressing the problems posed by the water crossings.
“What I want to end up with,” he said, “is at least six project descriptions with sufficient detail. I would simply take that and plug it into HMGP (Hazard Mitigation Grant Program). The problem we’ve had for years here, we’ve never gotten a hazard mitigation grant for this town.”
As an example, Barclay said a detailed project description would provide the steps that should be taken to deal with problems caused in the area where Beaver Brook crosses Brown Street. That section of road was washed out in heavy rains in July 2021.
“We’re out there every damn time it rains,” he said. “Every heavy rain, major one, the DPW is out there fixing that mess.”
“So,” queried Selectboard Chairwoman Deb D’Amico, “you need a letter of support from the board saying, ‘We can guarantee this $30,000 match?’”
“I’m telling you that I don’t think you’ll have to pay it,” Barclay responded, “but the feds want somebody, you. to say that we will.”
In response to a question from board member Rick Martin, Barclay said it was his understanding the board need not specify in the letter exactly how the town would cover the expense.
“If it’s simply not doable,” he said, “we’ll just walk away from the BRIC.”
The board ultimately voted unanimously to supply the letter committing the town to the $30,000 match.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.