Narrowsburg - The Upper Delaware Council (UDC) has awarded $25,400 in Technical Assistance Grants for eight projects that will further goals and address needs identified in the River Management Plan for the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River.

One of the grants will go to Shohola Township, in PIke County. Shohola will use $1,700 to identify potential, safe, and convenient public access areas along the Delaware River within Shohola Township for boating, fishing, swimming, and emergency situations.

The latest grant round brings the cumulative amount to $609,692 that the UDC has given to its member municipalities since 1988. In all, 173 projects have been funded through the Technical Assistance Grants (TAG) program.

Combined requests this year totaled $41,297, competing for an available $25,000 funding pool, to which $400 was added on the recommendation of the UDC’s Project Review Committee.

Technical Assistance Grants are available for research, planning, and studies conducted by the UDC’s eight member New York towns, three Pennsylvania townships, and the encompassing river corridor counties. They can provide seed money for a municipality to embark on a project without having to dip into local tax dollars.

Wayne County, Pa.’s four townships of Berlin, Buckingham, Damascus, and Manchester would be eligible to participate in this grant program if those townships joined the Council.

For more information on the Upper Delaware Council’s TAG program, contact UDC Senior Resource Specialist David B. Soete at (845) 252-3022 or udcsoete@hvc.rr.com.