Ithaca to receive funding for Six Mile Creek protections. How the money could be used

Jacob Mack, Ithaca Journal
·2 min read

The city of Ithaca will receive $45,500 from a state department and grant initiative, earmarked for the protection of one of the city’s major sources of clean drinking water.

Ithaca officials will explore “the impacts of various development scenarios and [provide] community leaders with decision-making tools” to protect Six Mile Creek, which provides drinking water to about 30,000 city residents according to a statement from New York Sea Grant, a Cornell environmental initiative which distributed the funding.

The statement did not denote exactly what the funding will be used for, but Ithaca City officials have released a list of proposed action items for the Six Mile Creek area.

This announcement comes about a month after the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) awarded design funds for Ithaca's flood mitigation project, which aims to update and control mitigation measures along Six Mile, Cascadilla and Fall Creeks in the city.

This shoreline stabilization project installed soil lifts as part of a nature-based shoreline project at Sandy Bottom Park in Honeoye, supported by funding from New York Sea Grant.
This shoreline stabilization project installed soil lifts as part of a nature-based shoreline project at Sandy Bottom Park in Honeoye, supported by funding from New York Sea Grant.

More about the award

Other recent recipients of the New York Great Lakes Basin small grant awards include the Village of Sodus Point, the Town of Evans, Erie County, Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper, Northern Forest Canoe Trail, Inc., the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Jefferson County, and the Finger Lakes Institute at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Awarded projects were selected for funding because they “advance the New York Great Lakes Great Lake Action Agenda goals to apply an ecosystem-based approach to enhance community resiliency and environmental integrity, and are identified in locally-supported community plans about water quality, natural resources, or sustainable land use,” according to a statement by the New York  Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)

"New York State is committed to advancing resiliency, water quality protection, and sustainable land use in the Great Lakes watershed by investing in projects that make valuable contributions to our environmental goals," said DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said in a statement.

New York Sea Grant is one of 34 university-based programs working with coastal communities through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Sea Grant College Program.

The grant initiative brings fosters a statewide network of research, education, and extension services in support of economic vitality, environmental sustainability, and citizen awareness and understanding of the state's marine and freshwater resources in coastal communities.

For more information on the grant awards, visit https://small-grants-program-ccegeomaps.hub.arcgis.com/.

This article originally appeared on Ithaca Journal: Ithaca receives grant for protection of Six Mile Creek