Berlin Awarded $20K Climate Resilience Grant From State

BERLIN – The Town of Berlin is one of a dozen jurisdictions set to receive a climate resilience grant from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

On Tuesday, DNR announced that it would be funding $700,000 in climate resilience grants to help communities prepare for and recover from climate-related impacts. The Town of Berlin will receive funding to help cover the cost of developing a resilience element to be incorporated into the municipality’s comprehensive plan.

“We had to update our comprehensive plan and given the community’s interest in environmental sustainability, it seemed to make sense we’d have a component in the comprehensive plan that addressed that,” Town Administrator Laura Allen said.

According to DNR, the climate resilience grants are meant to help strengthen a jurisdiction’s ability to plan and create solutions to help with flooding and weather-related events.

“We have already witnessed the devastating effects that severe rain and storms can cause in our communities,” said DNR Secretary Mark Belton. “This program aims to help our local partners become better prepared and more resilient so they are able to recover and respond to climate-related challenges, risks and threats, be it flooding or seal level rise.”

In Berlin, the town is just beginning the process of updating its comprehensive plan, which is meant to guide the community forward, outlining long-term goals and objectives. Allen said the process would likely be broken into pieces. While the grant funding will enable the town to work on a resilience element this year, other parts of the plan can be addressed next year.

“It’s not on a tight timeframe,” Allen said.

She said the town was still waiting to hear exactly how much funding it would be receiving from DNR but that she expected around $20,000. The funding will be available to the town Sept. 1 and the municipality will then have six months to use it to develop the resilience portion of the comprehensive plan. Allen expects the grant to help cover the cost of data analysis as well as a community engagement process. Allen said citizens had expressed a desire to discuss the town’s growth in recent years and that this would provide that opportunity.

“I don’t think you can talk about environmental resilience without talking about growth,” she said.

Allen added that while $20,000 might not sound like a large amount of funding it would enable the town to offer a robust engagement process as it kicked off its comprehensive plan update.

“It can really make a difference in a small community,” she said.

Several other jurisdictions on the Eastern Shore will also be receiving climate resilience grants. Worcester County is set to receive a grant to design a shoreline stabilization and marsh restoration project along the Isle of Wight Bay and a grant to develop a wetland restoration and natural shoreline stabilization project on Tizzard Island in the Chincoteague Bay. The Town of Hebron will receive a grant to support development of a stormwater management plan while Somerset County will get funding to conduct an assessment of drainage ditches on Deal Island.  Talbot County will receive a grant to develop communication strategies around flooding risk and impacts.

About The Author: Charlene Sharpe

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Charlene Sharpe has been with The Dispatch since 2014. A graduate of Stephen Decatur High School and the University of Richmond, she spent seven years with the Delmarva Media Group before joining the team at The Dispatch.