Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam Awards $120,000 Trails Program Grant to the City of Clarksville

Five Additional Recreational Trails Program Grants Announced

Nashville, TN – Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam and Environment and Conservation Commissioner Bob Martineau today awarded an additional $547,000 in grants for recreational trail projects across Tennessee. $120,000 was awarded to the City of Clarksville to connect Mary’s Oak Trail Head and the 101st Pedestrian Bridge through Heritage Park.

“These grants help local governments and organizations improve amenities such as trails, greenways and recreational facilities that contribute so much to a better community and quality of life,” Haslam said.  “The grants will help make Tennessee’s incredible natural beauty and outdoors more accessible to Tennesseans.”

The grants are through the Recreational Trails Program, a federally-funded program established to distribute funding for motorized, non-motorized and diverse recreation trail projects.  The funds are available to federal, state and local government agencies, as well as non-profit organizations that have obtained IRS 501(c)(3) status and have a written trail management agreement with the agency that owns the property where the trail project is located.

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.

“We are excited to have this additional funding opportunity, which will assist these five communities in the development of a variety of new trails,” said Martineau.

Funding for RTP grants is provided by the Federal Highway Administration through the federal Safe, Accountable, Flexible, 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 were 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/grants.shtml.

For more information about the RTP grant program, contact Gerald Parish at 615.532.0538 or Gerald.Parish@tn.gov.

A complete list of the grants announced today follows:

County	Name of the Recipient Organization	Grant Amount	Brief Project Description
Campbell	Town of Jellico	$120,000	Develop a 10’ wide multi-use trail that will connect to an existing trail at the City Memorial Park.
Dyer	City of Dyersburg	$97,000	Construct a walking/biking trail with a parking area, and informational kiosks and benches along the trail.
Montgomery	City of Clarksville	$120,000	Connect Mary’s Oak Trail Head and the 101st Pedestrian Bridge through Heritage Park.
Sumner Robertson	City of White House	$90,000	Restoration of the existing recreational trail with an asphaltic overlay, widening of the trail, new trail connections to an adjacent residential neighborhood and a pavilion, trail signage, and drainage improvements.
Tipton	Town of Munford	$120,000	Construct a 1/3 mile multi-use trail.