Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch and the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) announced 14 rural Indiana communities will receive more than $8 million in federal grant funding to expand community facilities and improve water infrastructure.
OCRA distributes Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to rural communities, which assist units of local government with various community projects such as infrastructure improvement, downtown revitalization, public facilities and economic development. The goals of the Wastewater and Drinking Water program are to protect resident and environmental health, reduce utility rates for low-to-moderate income communities and improve rural infrastructure to enable long-term economic growth.
Projects receiving Wastewater and Drinking Water program grant funding within the area are Francesville and Hamlet. Francesville has been awarded $700,000 to make repairs and improvements to the town’s water treatment plant. The grant will also fund the replacement of individual service meters in their current meter pits. The Town of Hamlet will receive $700,000 to support improvements to the drinking water system. The grant will include new meter pits, meters, water mains, valves, hydrants and a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.
Funding for OCRA’s CDBG programs originates from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program and is administered for the State of Indiana by OCRA.
