BY TRACY LEE TATE
Special to the Times
LAKE BUTLER—Clay Electric Cooperative is planning some big projects in the coming months, with funding from a federal grant program through FEMA.
However, the grant will be administered by the Florida Department of Energy Management and is being applied for through Union and several other Florida counties the co-op serves.
The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Grant Program is designed to provide funds for infrastructure projects that help reduce the risk posed by natural disasters like hurricanes.
Since Clay Electric is a not-for-profit business, it could not apply directly for the grant, so it asked administrators in the counties it serves to apply on its behalf as partners in a project that will benefit their populations.
There is no cost to Union County for this grant or the improvements that are planned to be made with it.
If approved, the planned projects will cost almost $35 million, with grant funds accounting for about $26 million and Clay Electric paying the remainder as matching funds.
According to Derick Thomas from Clay Electric, about $6 million in projects are slated for Union County.
In a short presentation to the Union County Board of Commissioners, Thomas thanked the county for help with the application provided by the Union County Sheriff’s Office, Union County Emergency Management and Clerk of Court, and Comptroller Kellie Rhoades. The counties involved will apply for the grant with Clay Electric as a sub-applicant. Thomas was at the meeting to get approval for the project from the board before the application was submitted, which was granted unanimously.
In Union County, the funds will be used to replace a generator at the Lake Butler Regional Medical Center ($1.8 million), back feed and substation hardening to mitigate total line loss ($1.8 million), transmission line hardening ($16.2 million) and distribution line hardening ($14.8 million). The overall objective is to avoid any avoidable power outages during a natural disaster storm, minimize damage to the power transmission infrastructure to make repairs quicker and more accessible, and attempt to prevent power outages, if not entirely by making them shorter. The total time projected for the project is three years.
