Press Release from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Oct. 16, 2013;
ROSSVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Deputy Commissioner Brock Hill today presented a $200,000 Recreational Trails Program (RTP) grant to the town of Rossville to install a pedestrian bridge and extend a nature trail, connecting Rossville City Park to the 12-acre lake.
“This recreational grant will allow for the town of Rossville to connect the city park to the lake and nature trail,” Hill said. “I would like to commend Fayette County for their work in obtaining this grant.”
The RTP grant will enable Rossville to connect Rossville City Park to the 12-acre lake and partial nature trail by installing a pedestrian bridge and extending the nature trail around the lake, providing a continuous loop of an ADA-accessible nature trail for various non-motorized uses.
The Recreational Trails Program is a federally funded program established to distribute funding for diverse recreation trail projects. The funds are available to federal, state and local government agencies, as well as non-profit organizations under certain conditions.
Recreational Trails Program grants may be used for non-routine maintenance and restoration of existing trails, development and rehabilitation, trailside or trailhead facilities such as restrooms, kiosks and parking lots, construction of new trails and land acquisition for recreational trails or corridors.
Funding for RTP grants is provided by the Federal Highway Administration through the federal Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation administers this grant program for the state. The maximum federal share for each project is 80 percent, with RTP grant recipients providing a 20 percent match.
Grant recipients are selected through a scoring process with careful consideration given to the projects that met the selection criteria and expressed the greatest local recreation need.
To learn more about the RTP grant program and other recreation or conservation-based grant programs available in the future, please visit http://tn.gov/environment/recreation/recreation_grants.shtml. For more information about the RTP grant program, contact Gerald Parish at 615-532-0538 or Gerald.Parish@tn.gov.
