BITS AND PIECES
A Weekly Update from the Strafford Region
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Part of the Rochester-Farmington Rail Trail in Rochester. (SRPC photo) |
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SRPC staff, including principal regional planner Kyle Pimental and GIS planner Jackson Rand, hosted the final steering committee meeting for the Durham Groundwater Modeling project on Thursday, Feb. 24 to review the final vulnerability assessment report.
This project was funded through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) Loan Program, which is administered by the State of New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES). The Groundwater Rise Modeling project aimed to identify future vulnerabilities from impacts of sea level rise on rising groundwater and saltwater intrusion to Durham’s public and private drinking water, private septic systems, municipal critical facilities, stormwater infrastructure, roads, utilities, and contaminated sites.
The project team consisted of SRPC, JFK Environmental LLC, and the University of New Hampshire. The project was also informed by a technical advisory committee including Durham staff, members of the Coastal Adaptation Workgroup, and staff from the NHDES Watershed Assistance Section, Wastewater Engineering Bureau, and Coastal Program.
SRPC was charged with providing overall project administration, as well as assistance with the vulnerability assessment and development of strategies and planning recommendations within the project’s final report.
The final report, which will be available on the SRPC website next week, is intended to communicate findings from the modeling results in a user-friendly way with clear steps outlined for the future.
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On Thursday, Feb. 24, SRPC staff facilitated a meeting with municipal staff from Rochester and Farmington to continue planning enhancements to the Rochester-Farmington rail trail and developing a direct connection from the existing trail to downtown Farmington. The existing improved portion of the trail is approximately 7 miles long and travels from Spaulding High School in Rochester, along NH11, just past its intersection with NH153 in Farmington. This official section connects to a large network of unofficial trails. The trail is already popular and there is great potential from creating a direct corridor for bike and pedestrian travel between the two growing communities.
SRPC will play multiple roles for this project, including acting as a liaison between the municipalities and NHDOT, providing potential field work services like mapping the trails with a GPS unit and identify potential locations for trail heads, and if the two communities decide to apply for a Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) grant, assisting with that effort.
This project is in its earliest phase. Strafford MPO staff also intend to further develop the project’s scope with municipal staff. This project is perfect example of a priority project for potential inclusion in SRPC’s active transportation plan, which is under development.
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During the week of Feb. 21, communications and outreach planner Shayna Sylvia, in partnership with Wentworth Economic Development Corporation (WEDCO) and the Explore Moose Mountains (EMM) committee, completed a final draft of EMM's USDA Rural Development grant application.
Explore Moose Mountains (EMM), is a grass-roots initiative which resulted from a series of community conversations in 2014, centered on encouraging businesses supporting a healthy culture of regional tourism. It seeks to share, promote, and amplify information about the assets of the friendly, tourism-driven towns of Brookfield, Farmington, New Durham, Middleton, Milton, Wakefield, and Wolfeboro, or The Moose, NH.
This will be the entity's second time applying to the USDA RD program. In the 2021 application process, EMM's application was deemed eligible by USDA, however went unfunded due to limited program dollars. Similar to last year's application, EMM embarked on an effort to raise match funding, and is now 94% of the way to its goal.
The proposed project, Marketing the Moose, will be implemented by a series of tasks aimed at promoting the region and creating a sustainable framework for increased tourism that positively affects area business.
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