EGREMONT, Mass. — The Egremont Select Board announced that it has received a $81,500 climate resilience grant to "Bring Climate Action Home" by the Healey-Driscoll Administration's Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program.

 

The Action funding builds on the Egremont MVP climate resilience planning process completed in 2022, which identified the top climate change impacts being felt locally, that require further study or mitigation.

 

The program is administered by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA).

 

These competitive grants support communities in identifying climate hazards, developing strategies to improve resilience, and implementing priority actions to adapt to climate change. 

 

Egremont's is one of 79 projects to have received Action grant funding in the latest round of applications. 

 

"We're excited to start implementing our climate resiliency priority actions," Egremont MVP Committee Co-Chair Juliette Haas said. "...This funding will enable us to conduct baseline engineering studies on Karner Brook to protect our water supply, strengthen our Town Bylaws and Policies and teach residents Best Practices they can adopt at home - to save energy, combat invasives or protect wetlands or ponds in their neighborhood." 

 

Community members interested in getting involved in "Bringing Climate Action Home" Workshop planning should contact the Town Hall. 

 

The MVP program, created in 2017, provides funding for community-driven climate resilience planning and action. Ninety-nine percent, or 349 out of 351 of the Commonwealth's cities and towns, are participating in the program and over $131.5 million has been awarded for local climate resilience planning and projects. Communities originally enrolled in the program by completing the MVP Planning Grant process (MVP 1.0), which then opened up access to apply for an MVP Action Grant, or implementation funding. EEA has recently launched the MVP 2.0 update to the original MVP planning grant, and after this year's pilot round, intends to require communities to undergo MVP 2.0 to maintain eligibility in applying for MVP Action Grants.