Windsor Locks Added To Federal Conservation Funding Area

WINDSOR LOCKS, CT — Windsor Locks is now eligible to compete for federal money that can help preserve open space, wildlife habitat and water resources.

The town was one of five Connecticut communities recently added to the federal Highlands Conservation Act area, according to the Housatonic Valley Association. Berlin, Bloomfield, New Britain and West Hartford were also added.

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The designation does not mean Windsor Locks has received a grant. It allows the town, land trusts and the state to seek money through the program for qualifying conservation projects.

The Highlands region covers more than 3.4 million acres across Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Congress established the program in 2004 to help protect land tied to drinking water, forests, wildlife, agriculture and outdoor recreation.

Federal grants are often combined with Connecticut's Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant Program, along with municipal and private funding.

Since the program began, 52 projects in Connecticut have used more than $18.5 million in Highlands funding to conserve more than 9,000 acres, according to the association.

Congress reauthorized the law and expanded the eligible region in 2022. Communities inside the expanded area must voluntarily opt into the program, with requests reviewed by the state and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Housatonic Valley Association said it worked with the Trust for Public Land, Traprock Ridge Land Conservancy and state officials to help the five towns complete that process. Twenty Connecticut municipalities have been added since the program's geographic expansion, bringing the state's total to 48.

"Bringing additional federal funding into Connecticut to match existing state open space funding that increases the pace of conservation is a huge win for our municipal and nonprofit partners as well as the residents of the state," Lindsay Suhr, director of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection's Land Acquisition and Management Office, said in a statement.

The announcement did not identify a specific Windsor Locks property or project that would seek funding.

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