By Joel DeStasio
Trout Unlimited continues to build upon our successful series of community flood resiliency workshops in New Hampshire, engaging local decision-makers, such as Selectboard, Department of Public Works and Conservation Commission members, on identifying and restoring critical infrastructure.
During this recent series of workshops, TU successfully worked with an additional 23 communities across the Granite State, increasing awareness of infrastructure risk and vulnerability while at the same time educating stakeholders on how to pro-actively prevent flood damage to town infrastructure during severe weather events.
TU’s community workshops outlined a number of methods to reduce risk through education, prioritization and developing watershed wide partnerships, as well as outlining affordable mitigation techniques.
Additionally, TU continued to develop new partnerships with County Conservation District staff and federal agencies like FEMA to also engage with towns during these interactive workshops.
TU has shared new ways for towns to prioritize their vulnerable infrastructure, develop conceptual plans, target grant funding, and create partnerships to implement restoration projects.
TU is also in the process of developing a New Hampshire Technical Assistance program to help communities narrow down each partner’s focus with the goal being to more efficiently help towns take the next step in carrying out priority culvert replacement projects.
Moving forward, TU recently received funding to continue our community outreach in 2020 surrounding the White Mountains region of New Hampshire. This opportunity will allow us to expand our Technical Assistance program focusing on an additional 20 New Hampshire towns in this region.