Colony, Garden City awarded grants for infrastructure projects

Benjamin Bullard, The Cullman Times, Ala.
·2 min read

Oct. 18—A pair of grants totaling almost $800,000 will help fund infrastructure projects that otherwise would remain out of reach for two of Cullman County's smallest municipalities.

The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA) has announced that Colony and Garden City each has been awarded a federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's CDBG Small City Fund program.

At Colony, the funds will be used to rehabilitate portions of paving and ditching along roads and streets; while at Garden City, the money will be used to address non-compliance notification from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management "regarding the algae buildup in the sewer lagoon" at the town's waste water treatment plant, "and remedy the E. coli found at the wastewater treatment center," according to ADECA.

Colony has been awarded $399,827 for its roads project; Garden City's sewage project will receive $389,800. Colony must provide a local match of $20,000 to qualify for the money, while Garden City must provide $10,000. Both towns applied for the funds with grant writing assistance from the North Central Alabama Regional Council of Governments (NARCOG).

Awards that approach $400,000 might not seem like much for larger municipalities, but the money goes a long way at Garden City and Colony — smaller towns whose entire annual budgets total less than the lump sum they'll be receiving to fund their respective projects. Alabama House Rep. Corey Harbison (R-Good Hope), whose district encompasses both municipalities, said CDBG grants help smaller municipalities afford community improvements that simply wouldn't be possible without the income-based program's assistance.

"It's very difficult for municipalities like Garden City and Colony to do any type of infrastructure work at this scale," said Harbison, "because they struggle with that amount of funding because of the their small size.

"Getting the money to do these needed projects keeps them from having to use money out of the local taxes their citizens pay. At Garden City, funding a sewer improvement would likely mean passing along that cost in the form of increases in sewer rates, so grant funding like this helps them to limit or possibly having to do that."

Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 234.