In what is seen as only a temporary setback, Schoharie County officials learned late Friday afternoon that they won’t receive a $2.575 million federal grant essential for the Route 7 water and sewer line project.
The project is seen as crucial to the Howe Caverns dinosaur park and future commercial development on Route 7.
Despite the bad news, both Cobleskill Supervisor Tom Murray and county Planning Director Alicia Terry remain optimistic about the grant.
“I’m looking at it like a three strikes and you’re out,” Ms. Terry said Monday.
“We’re not out yet.”
This is the second time the grant has not been funded by the federal government.
Ms. Terry said she would be meeting with Mr. Murray and other county officials this week to get the grant application for the next round in June.
“We’ll just have to keep going to the well,” Mr. Murray said Monday.
“I have to remain optimistic. I’m still perky.”
The grant which would come through the Economic Development Administration, would make up a large portion of the $7.8 million water and sewer line project.
Citing economic development and a larger tax base as reasons, supervisors have already committed $2 million to the project, as has Howe Caverns.
The county applied for the EDA on March 10.
A good sign is that the county’s grant did better than the first time, Ms. Terry said.
“We got further along in the process this time,” she said.
“They didn’t knock us out totally in (round) one, they didn’t knock us out in (round) two,” Mr. Murray said.
“Round one was a setback, round two was a setback.”
He was optimistic about the county’s chances this time after meeting with Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressman Paul Tonko in a meeting set up by Assemblyman Peter Lopez.
“They were so positive,” he said. “We had good support.”
The county, he said, has not had a project of this magnitude or federal grant funding of this amount for some time.
“We’re kind of overdue,” he said.
“We’ll just go back again…We’ll get it done, “I’m convinced.”
Meetings will be held this week to determine what is needed to get the application approved in June, Ms. Terry said.
Officials will use the feedback from the EDA to refine the application and address any weaknesses, she said.
Mr. Murray said the grant application didn’t need much work, though he noted the EDA questioned the large number of tourism jobs that would be created in the Howe Caverns project.
He said that about 180 of the 350 jobs created in the Howe Caverns expansion would be part-time. The caverns project is estimated to cost about $20 million.
While he remains optimistic, Mr. Murray said that further delays in getting federal funding could push back the water and sewer line project from the hoped for completion date in July 2012.
The groundbreaking target was September or October, he said.
“If the timeline has to be pushed back, it gets pushed back,” he said.
County officials have said that running water and sewer lines from the Village of Cobleskill will help bring businesses to Route 7 and add property tax and sales tax revenue to the county coffers, thereby lowering the burden on taxpayers.
Howe Caverns representatives said they could proceed with the expansion without the water and sewer lines. County officials, however, said the caverns’ expansion project could be used as a hook to get federal funding and much needed water and sewer to Route 7.
Officials noted in March that two large projects, Lowe’s and FedEx were lost because of a lack of water on Route 7.