Grant Money To Help Area Recreation Projects

Area projects get some help thanks to some grant money.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources has announced that the U.S. Forest Service Panther Creek Trail in Stephens and Habersham counties has received a $77,000 grant.

Panther Creek was one of 27 projects across the state to receive a total of $2.5 million in grant money.

Georgia DNR Trail Grant Coordinator Loren Moore said the DNR awards the grants yearly from funding appropriated by the federal government.

Moore said the projects chosen this year for the grant, including Panther Creek, came from a group of 87 applications that went through a competitive grant process where officials looked at a number of different criteria.

“We are checking to make sure they can fund the program,” said Moore. “There is a 20 percent match that they need to come up with. We want to know that there is going to be a lot of local support. We look for a lot of partners. We also like to see linkages between existing trail resources and other resources in the community that we know that trail is really going to be utilized by a lot of trail users.”

Panther Creek’s $77,000 is going for the trail and trailhead maintenance, according to the DNR.

Moore said that maintenance is something the DNR is committed to doing through this grant program.

“We do want to make sure that, if there are existing trail resources out there, basically that we are going to fund these projects that may be heavily utilized or are in areas of high erosion and there are going be some needs there to make sure they are up to snuff and safe for our trail users,” said Moore.

Also receiving funds from the DNR through this grant program were the U.S. Forest Service Chattooga River Ranger District for Off-Highway Vehicle Trail Maintenance in the amount of $120,000 and Hart County in the amount of $60,000 for the Hart County Trail.

This program, known as the DNR’s Recreational Trails program, funds work for hiking, biking, and horseback trails, as well as canoe and kayak launches.

The DNR said funding is also available for trails that accommodate motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, and off-road light trucks.