Federal funding boosts rural resilience

August 4, 2024 - From the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

By PETE KOLBENSCHLAG

An old coal-mine, a new grain mill, a century-old irrigation ditch and an innovative agrivoltaic project are all connected in the effort to create resilience in the rural, transitioning community of the North Fork Valley, in western Colorado.

The recipe for building sustainable communities — those which are economically secure, socially equitable and ecologically resilient — is always best made with home-grown solutions that center local leaders and broad, shared benefit. These projects in the North Fork, as dissimilar as they may seem, are all parts of crafting a more diverse, re-circulating economy. An economy not impeded by but built on solving problems, overcoming challenges and securing a future in uncertain times.

All these projects are also connected by new investment into rural enterprise, innovation and sweat-equity that is helping communities across America prepare for coming disruptions from climate change. These investments are made possible through the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, both passed in 2022, and other targeted federal funding allowing rural places, suburban towns and cities alike to adapt systems and upgrade infrastructure to make them more resilient and to shift our energy sources away from fossil fuels.

Mountain Oven Organic Bakery has worked to create a local organic grain economy in the North Fork Valley region. This year it has applied for funding through the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program made possible through the federal American Rescue Plan (2021). This Paonia-based company seeks to boost its capacity even further, strengthening the direct market for local growers.

The Farmers Ditch was put in at the end of the 19th century, making it one of the oldest water rights on the North Fork of the Gunnison River. A project led by the Western Slope Conservation Center and made possible by funds from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law matched by multiple funders as well as the ditch company’s several hundred members, is helping to make the agricultural water diversion more efficient while boosting watershed and climate resiliency and helping downvalley irrigators.

The Colorado Farm & Food Alliance, the organization I direct, is a lead partner in two clean energy and innovation prizes, both made possible by the federal infrastructure law. One of these, at the former Bowie #1 coal mine outside Paonia, will also support reclamation and the destruction of harmful waste methane leaking from the old mines, which the project intends to put to beneficial use and could boost workforce opportunities.

The other project we are helping lead will be an agrivoltaic project to serve up to 75 small farms and farmworker households, co-located at a market farm outside of Hotchkiss. This project is now moving from pre-development toward funding the project. For this, the Thistle Whistle Farm project hopes to access the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which also received additional funds through the Inflation Reduction Act. And both these community solar projects will rely on credits and incentives these laws make possible — providing a direct benefit to investors, local energy consumers and reducing the need to burn fossil fuels to power area farms, ranches and households.

One maxim notes that agriculture relies on four things: sun, water, soil and work. The Colorado Farm & Food Alliance also sees that mix as energy, watershed and land health, and people. We see rural resilience as likewise situated in those things. A secure economy, a healthy environment and a clean energy future are all possible in rural Colorado — and are made more possible by smart federal investments in strong local partnerships. Laws such as the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are delivering for communities.

This is why politicians, no matter how they vote in D.C., still love to show up in their districts when it’s time for a ribbon-cutting. But at the end of the day, the laws that Congress passes matter. Let’s not forget the value of these investments for rural Colorado, whichever side of the aisle you sit on.

Pete Kolbenschlag is a longtime public lands and climate activist, and currently the director of the Colorado Farm and Food Alliance. He is based in Delta County.