The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will award more than $15 million in grants to 12 states to help acquire, restore and protect coastal wetlands for long-term conservation benefits to wildlife and habitat, Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced today. When the 2006 projects are complete, they will have protected, restored or enhanced about 14,000 acres.
Texas is one of 12 states included in fiscal year 2006 awards under the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program. Other states are Alabama , Alaska , California , Georgia , Hawaii , Illinois , Maine , Massachusetts , Michigan , New Jersey and Washington .
The grants provide funding for 19 projects and will be supplemented with more than $12 million from state and private partners. Partners in this years projects include state and local governments, private landowners and conservation groups such as The Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, Scenic Galveston , Inc., Wildlife Forever Foundation and many others.
"When people at so many different levels come together in these kinds of projects, everybody wins," Norton said. "This is the kind of effort that makes it possible for us to leave a real legacy for our children and grandchildren."
In Texas , the coastal grant will be used on Phase II of the North Deer Protection and Restoration plan. North Deer is the largest rookery in the Galveston Bay system and is used each year by up to 30,000 breeding pairs of 19 species of coastal-dependent birds including over 1,000 nesting pairs of federally listed brown pelican.
The North Deer Island project will protect and restore over 135 acres of habitats associated with the island. In Phase II, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department will protect 82 acres of habitat from erosion and restore eight acres of estuarine marsh on North Deer Island .
The total cost of the project is $1.17 million, with the $653,300 of that paid by the coastal grant. The states share of the project is $350,000. The other $167,000 will be contributed by the projects private partners, who are Galveston Bay Estuary Program, Gulf of Mexico Program , the Services Coastal Program in Texas , Texas Genco EcoCenter, Shell Marine Habitat Program and Audubon-Houston.
National Coastal Wetlands Conservation grants are awarded to states through a competitive process. The program is funded under provisions of the 1990 Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act, with money generated from excise taxes on fishing equipment, and motorboat and small engine fuels.
"These are win-win projects," said Dale Hall, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Im very excited when were able to leverage the taxpayer dollar with our partners and get a lot more value for the money."
Including the 2006 grants, the Service has awarded more than $165 million in grants to states and insular areas since the program began. When the 2006 projects are complete, a total of more than 200,000 acres will have been protected, restored or enhanced since the grant program began.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses 545 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Assistance program, which distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies.
For more information about the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program, visit http://www.fws.gov/coastal/CoastalGrants/ or contact the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program or Division of Federal Assistance, located at 4401 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203."
