Published: June 16, 2009 02:23 pm      

County to get Ike recovery funding

Anderson County stands to benefit from nearly $450,000 in federal funding to be provided through East Texas Council of Governments for Hurricane Ike disaster recovery.

The funds are part of some $9.22 million in Ike recovery funds made available by the Office of Rural Community Affairs (ORCA). ETCOG officials are responsible for scoring and ranking projects applied for by its member city and county governments.

Now county officials with projects nominated to receive funding have until June 30 to send their applications directly to ORCA.

Anderson County officials applied for funding to purchase emergency power generators for two rural water supply companies and the City of Elkhart.

ETCOG’s Regional Review Committee gave its approval for funding $68,000 for emergency generators for the Neches Water Supply Co. and $110,000 for the Slocum WSC, as well as $146,010.50 for a generator at the Newsome Water Plant in Elkhart and $121,984.50 for a generator at Elkhart’s wastewater treatment plant.

Project scoring was based on the ETCOG committee’s objective scoring criteria, which included each county’s poverty rate, per capita income and unemployment rate. Projects have been classified as “nominated for funding” under the ORCA guidelines and can be viewed online at either www.etcog.org or as a portable document file (.pdf) at www.etcog.org/files/articles/65-ikecountyfunding.pdf.

After Hurricane Ike moved over Anderson County on Sept. 13, 2008, the Slocum and Neches water companies lost power to their well pumps, causing customers to have to boil their water.