WARREN — The Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry (DACF) has awarded $158,874 in Municipal Planning Assistance Program grants to seven projects along the Maine coast. The funds, administered by the Department's Maine Coastal Program will support coastal habitat restoration, coastal hazards resilience, and stormwater management.

Grants were awarded as follows:

1. Town of Warren $34,965 for Warren "Stream-Smart" Culvert Replacement Initiative in partnership with the Maine Department of Marine Resources and The Nature Conservancy. Grant funds will be utilized to secure engineering services to assess two blocked and failing culverts lying within an important coastal habitat area and to design "stream smart" replacements that will allow safe passage for fish and other wildlife. The blocked culverts lie within the St. George River watershed, which is home to a recovering Alewife population, and are shown on US Fish and Wildlife maps as "Atlantic Salmon Critical Habitat."

2. Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission $15,998 for Restoration of Coastal Habitats and Phase II Coastal Hazards Resiliency Project in partnership with the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission and Lincoln County Commissioners. The project consists of three parts. Part 1 is an educational effort to improve access to habitat for Atlantic salmon, alewives, sea run rainbow smelt and native brook trout and involves creating an interactive map and simplified spreadsheet based on data about culverts, dams and bridges in the Maine Stream Habitat Viewer LCRPC staff will meet with each town's select board and road commissioner to review problem culverts and bridges and discuss plans for corrective action. Part 2 is the preparation of waterproof map books of showing areas predicted to be impacted by a Category 1 hurricane in Lincoln County communities. The map books will be made available to each coastal community to be kept in emergency response vehicles. A digital version will be provided to the county EMA. Part 3 involves preparation of model amendments to local shoreland zoning ordinances and maps providing the option of enacting enhanced building standards within areas predicted to be impacted by sea level rise.

3. City of Eastport $27,794 for Adaptive Responses for Custom Street in partnership with the Washington County Council of Governments and University of Maine Machias GIS Laboratory. The project will arrest and prevent erosion from storm water run-off and improve the resilience of Custom Street in Eastport to withstand the impacts of severe rain events, snow melt and coastal storm surge. The grant will pay for site survey and design and be leveraged by municipal matching funds to implement infrastructure improvements. The project will be designed to include low impact development (LID) elements.

4. Town of Cape Elizabeth $16,500 for a Town Center Stormwater Study in partnership with the Town Center Plan committee. The Town of Cape Elizabeth recently completed an update to the original 1993 Town Center Plan. One of the seven recommendations is to update the 1995 Town Center Stormwater Plan to include low impact development (LID) techniques. The study prepared through these grants funds will update and prepare a blueprint for build-out of the stormwater infrastructure in the town center, employing the most current thinking in Low Impact Development techniques as appropriate. The Town Center drains into the Spurwink Marsh which the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has rated as high value for wildlife habitat. The implementation of LID techniques in stormwater management in the Town Center should help improve the quality of stormwater entering the marsh and more generally improve coastal water quality.

5. The City of Ellsworth $25,000 for Stormwater Management and Adaptation Planning in partnership with Maine's Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI). The project includes collecting and field-verifying data on the City's public and private stormwater infrastructure as part of a larger project to increase coastal infrastructure resiliency. It will help to build resiliency and protect water quality while supporting the increasing pressures of development in Ellsworth.

6. Hancock County Planning Commission $31,582 for Adapting Stonington Working Waterfront: An Implementation Strategy for Resiliency in partnership with the Town of Stonington, Penobscot East Resource Center, and Maine Sea Grant Program. Stonington is Maine's top port in terms of the value of commercial fishing landings. This project will assess the current vulnerability of waterfront infrastructure in Stonington to storm damage and flooding and will identify needed adjustments based on projected storm surges. The project will recommend a schedule of improvements, provide cost estimates, and identify funding sources.

7. Town of Phippsburg $18,000 for Citizen Science and Engineering to improve fish passage at Center Pond, Phippsburg in partnership with the Center Pond River Herring Committee, Maine Department of Marine Resources, and US Fish & Wildlife Service. The project will improve Alewife passage through a fishway into Center Pond. Improving passage at the fishway will improve the strength of the run and provide a local revenue source and local source of bait for area lobstermen. The US Fish & Wildlife service has performed an assessment of the fishway and identified several major problem areas which require engineering design. This grant will provide funds for a comprehensive engineering assessment, design plans for improvements and regulatory permitting for improvements to the fishway. Citizen science, in the form of volunteer monitoring of passing fish and collecting biological data, integral to the engineering assessment is part of this project.

Grant funds for this program are made possible through Maine's federal coastal management award from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The grant program is an important component of the DACF Maine Coastal Program work plan which includes coastal regional and local planning elements administered through the DACF Municipal Planning and Assistance Program. All of the projects include collaboration and partnerships and each grantee will provide a minimum of 25 percent in matching funds or services.

This is the fifth round of the Coastal Community Grant Program. Since 2012, 32 grants have been awarded for a total of $806,106. More information on the grant program can be found at http://www.maine.gov/dacf/municipalplanning/financial_assistance.shtml.