BOSTON – The Federal Emergency Management Agency will be sending more than $1.8 million to the State of Vermont to reimburse the town of Highgate for the costs of a slope stabilization project along Transfer Station Road.
The $1,808,011 in Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funding will help address a landslide-prone area by excavating an estimated 17,810 cubic yards of subsoil and topsoil and flattening failing slide areas and transition areas.
The project will then use an estimated 27,320 cubic yards of stone fill to rebuild the slope, as well as install a drainage swale and stone key. Approximately 2.3 acres of land will be cleared and there will also be stream channel realignment and widening undertaken. FEMA had already provided some funding for preliminary surveying and design work.
The funding for the project is part of a pool of grant money provided to the state after Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program provides funding to state, local, tribal and territorial governments so they can develop hazard mitigation plans and rebuild in a way that reduces future disaster losses in their communities.
After a presidentially declared disaster, states receive HMGP money equal to a percentage of the total grants authorized under other FEMA assistance programs. The state then administers the HMGP grants locally, which can pay for projects that reduce flooding, or to elevate or even buy out flood-prone homes.
“Mitigation funding is a key part of FEMA’s mission,” said FEMA Region I Regional Administrator Lori Ehrlich. “Studies have demonstrated that for every dollar invested in mitigation, six dollars are saved in prevented losses. It’s always better to spend money to prevent a disaster than to pay for cleaning up afterward.”