Financial Assistance Available For Spring 2022 Water Quality Improvement Projects

The rivers may be frozen for now, but it’s time to start thinking about what improvements could be made once things thaw out.

The Sheridan County Conservation District is accepting requests for assistance with spring-time water improvement projects along the Tongue, Goose and Prairie Dog creeks.

Such projects include fencing and water development or relocation of corrals and facilities to reduce livestock access to streams and replacement of eligible septic systems, to eliminate sewage discharges to rivers.

District manager Carrie Rogaczewski says the District has offered a financial assistance program since 2001, and a recent increase in requests has forced the district to have requests come in during a certain time frame, instead of at any time.

She adds, it’s not first come first serve on applications, and projects are ranked by a certain criteria, such as the potential to benefit water quality and length of stream benefitted. 

“The board also considers the readiness to proceed. We don’t want to tie up a lot of project dollars on projects that still need a significant amount of planning. The idea is that the projects that are awarded funding would be ready to go into construction in the next year.”

The application deadline for the spring 2022 season is February 11th.

Applications will be considered by the Board of Supervisors at their meeting in March.