Maine to Benefit from USDA Grants to Three Organizations

Bangor, ME, July 21, 2008 – More than $96,000 in Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) funds have been awarded to three organizations, two of which operate in Maine. This announcement was made by Joyce Swartzendruber, State Conservationist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Maine, the agency that administers the grant program. Recipients of the CIG funds are the Androscoggin Valley Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), Community Generation Partners, LLC, and Tekconsultants.Net, Inc.

A component of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), CIG is a statewide competitive grants process to address some of the state’s most pressing natural resource conservation needs. The purpose of CIG is to stimulate the development and adoption of innovative conservation approaches and technologies while leveraging Federal investment in environmental enhancement and protection, in conjunction with agricultural production. CIG projects are expected to lead to the transfer of conservation technologies, management systems, and innovative approaches into NRCS technical manuals or guides, or to the private sector.

The Androscoggin Valley SWCD is a registered 501(c)(1) not-for-profit organization. Their mission is to coordinate assistance from all available sources -- public and private, local, state and federal -- in an effort to develop locally driven solutions to natural resource concerns. They received $22,493 to assist them in carrying out Phase 2 of a Carbon Credit Project. The SWCD received a CIG grant last year to carry out Phase 1 of the project, which was designed to identify information needed to establish a soils carbon baseline for Maine and develop the methodology necessary to expand it throughout the State in order to collect the data needed to establish a statewide voluntary carbon credit marketing program. Phase 2 will expand data collection and modeling into Kennebec and Aroostook counties.

Community Generation Partners, LLL, located in Freeport, brings locally-owned renewable energy and energy efficiency projects to communities throughout the Northeast. They received $35,000 to further the efforts of a Maine CIG grant that they were awarded in 2007 to demonstrate the use and application of an innovative and relatively-new best management practice known as “farmer-owned wind development”. Under this year’s grant they will demonstrate farmer-owned, commercial-scale community wind project development; grow the number of projects and the diversity of ownership in Maine among all types of farmers; and educate and teach farmers about one of the newest best management practices that combines continued productivity and conservation practices, with a new source of revenue.

Tekconsultants.Net, Inc. through its agricultural subdivision GeoAgro, is a consulting firm from Florida that provides technology solutions to agricultural producers and conservationists. They work with private organizations and government agencies to provide them with innovative, practical, and cost-effective solutions. Tekconsultants received $38,773 to provide Stewardship Foresters in Maine access to tools to work with NRCS conservation plans using the NRCS Conservation Plug-in. This will allow Stewardship Foresters to create and follow-up on Forest Management Plans according to NRCS and Maine Forest Service requirements, connecting to NRCS databases.

“Through these partnerships we hope to develop new technologies that increase the protection of our state’s resources,” said Swartzendruber. “I look forward to working with them and seeing the environmental and economic results of the projects.”

For more information about NRCS and its programs visit www.me.nrcs.usda.gov.

National Conservation Innovation Grants Website

< Back to News Releases