At the Tri-County Trail Commission meeting on August 27 in Dodgeville, the commission received great news that four of the 11 applications submitted were approved for bridges on the Cheese Country Trail.
The Snowmobile Recreation Council (SRC) and the Off-Road Vehicle (ORV) Council awarded funding for bridges 40, 30, 47 and 45.
Bridge 40 received $753,000 from the Snowmobile Trail Aid (STA) and $100,000 from both the ATV/UTV Trail Aid and the Recreation Trail Program (RTP).
Bridge 30 received $253,000 from the STA and $100,000 from ATV/UTV.
Bridge 47 was completely funded from the ATV/UTV with $475,000 and $100,000 from the RTP.
Bridge 45 received $160,000 from STA and $100,000 from both the ATV/UTV and RTP.
In total, the SRC gave the Cheese Country Trails $1.166 million, the ATV/UTV gave $1.641 million and RTP distributed $400,000 for a total of almost $2.8 million.
This will be a multi-year project but it projects will get started as soon as they receive approval from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
Wisconsin ATV Association member and Chair of the ORV Rob McConnell commented that he has never see this much money give out before.
“There are going to be move needs down the road,” McConnell stated.
There were 56 ATV/UTV grant applications and over 50 percent of them were awarded monies. The funds are administered by the DNR but the funds come from the yearly registrations of snowmobiles, ATVs,
and UTVs. If the projects are done within a couple of years, the commission can go back and ask for additional monies for other bridge projects.
He praised Max Blackbourn for all the work he put into the applications. Blackbourn stepped down as the Tri- County Trail Coordinator as of August 31. The position has been posted by Lafayette County as a .5 position, being funded by both Lafayette and Green County, using funds from registration stickers purchased. The Tri-County Trail Commission did approve to continue to put towards $5,500 for the position. Green County Supervisor Larry Kranig had mentioned in a previous conversation that Green County might be able to give $20,000 towards the position. Iowa County has declined to give additional money towards the position. More discussion on the position will be discussed at the next Tri-County Trail Commission meeting on September 24 in Green County.
McConnell said the next thing to do is get people replenish the money in both the ATV/UTV Trail Aid and STA. STA are entirely funded by snowmobilers. The money awarded in grants to Wisconsin counties comes from snowmobile registrations, trail pass revenue, and gas tax from some of the gas used in snowmobiles. McConnell hopes when the government starts drafting legislation, there will be additional money put into these programs to help keep them moving forward.
Update on projects
Lauren Ray of Origin Designs gave updates on the five active projects with the commission. They are working on two projects in Belmont with Bonner’s Branch and Bridge 72. They are looking at reducing the bridge size. The rip rap projects is working on the H&H study. The bank on one side of the project is very steep so it may be tricky to complete. The other side of the bank is potentially private property but that will be investigated at later time.