Lincoln County has received a Coastal Community Grant of $15,998 from the state of Maine. The state grant will be met with approximately $4,000 in funding by the county.

Speaking before the Lincoln County Commissioners on Aug. 19, County Planner Robert Faunce, of the Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission, explained the provisions of the grant proposal that was accepted by the state.

Two years ago, the County Planning Commission received a grant for $35,000 to fund a project that would examine how local areas would be affected if there was a rise in sea level. The new grant provides for three further efforts following from the original grant activity.

One effort will be to create model ordinances and maps customized for each town that can be used to set building elevations for new construction, using the rise in sea level as a metric.

The second effort will be in direct response to a request from emergency management to provide waterproof maps for first responders that can be stored in their vehicles. The maps would indicate areas at risk of inundation in the event of a Category 1 hurricane. Typically, a “Cat 1” hurricane would have winds of at least 74 mph over a sustained period of time.

The third effort to be funded by the grant will be to provide information to towns in Lincoln County concerning problematic culverts. Of particular concern are old culverts which, because of their size, post a risk to breeding and rearing of migrating species like Atlantic salmon.

More than 80 culverts in Lincoln County are preventing certain species of fish from reaching waters where they breed and rear their young.

Faunce explained that the problem with culverts in the county is that they were created many years ago when weather patterns were different and storms were not as severe. In recent years, we have seen large rain storms become more commonplace.

Older and smaller culverts cannot handle the volume of water brought by modern storms and some species of fish are not able to navigate the quickly flowing water generated through small culverts. The other effect of smaller and older culverts handling rain from modern storms is an increase in the number of roads that collapse.

“All information from the grant,” Faunce said, “is provided for the use of towns in Lincoln County and any efforts a town may wish to undertake are completely voluntary.”

John O’Connell, County Administrator, lauded the grant efforts.

“I’m very pleased that Bob Faunce obtained this grant for Lincoln County,” he said. “This is a continuation of his long term efforts to provide as many services as possible to our communities.”