by SC Reporter Reese Holiday
Grants from the 2021 National Coastal Resilience Fund are up for grabs as Sanibel and Captiva join other coastal communities around the nation in throwing their names in the hat.
The fund, which runs through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, will award approximately $34 million dollars in grants to projects that focus on planning, design and restoration of natural solutions that protect coastal communities from sea level rise.
The Captiva Community Panel, Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation and the City of Sanibel partnered up and applied for the grant last year but didn’t hear their name called once the grantees were announced. However, much like the resilient coasts of the sister islands, they’re trying again.
“Frequently on grants, you don’t get it the first time,” CCP member Linda Laird said. “So, you’re turned down and then you come back, update it and change a few things.”
Laird, who is also the chair for CCP’s Sea Level Rise Committee, said it’s important to apply for the grant again due to how imminent sea level rise is on the two islands.
She explained barrier islands, like Sanibel and Captiva, are already vulnerable to affects from sea level rise, like damage to homes, properties and the fragile ecosystems of the islands.
With the sea’s level continuing to rise due to climate change and the warming of the Earth, those affects will only worsen, which is why slowing down this rise is so important, and why making the necessary changes to the grant’s proposal is so valuable.
“What the grant will do is pay for an integrated plan for Captiva and Sanibel that looks at what are our vulnerabilities, what will happen when the sea level goes up, and then what are reasonable adaptations to do to prevent those from hurting the wildlife,” Laird said.
To construct changes to their proposal, Laird has worked directly with SCCF representative Ryan Orgera, City of Sanibel representative Joel Caouette and other SLR committee members to make their proposal more competitive.
Last year’s proposal was turned in by SCCF and focused on how sea level rise affected the animals and people of Sanibel and Captiva, as well as how that rise can be adapted to, especially during storms.
Laird said while most things will stay the same, the City of Sanibel will take the lead with this year’s proposal, focusing on a Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Analysis and Adaptation Analysis for Sanibel and Captiva, and having its eyes set on the end game.
“In the previous one, I think we focused more on the technology we were going to use and how we were going to go about it,” Laird said. “This one, I think we’re focusing more on the results.”
However, there is still a long way to go as only pre-proposals and letters of intent have been sent to the NFWF, who will then ask selected projects to submit a full proposal which will be considered for the grants.
According to an email sent from Holly Milbrandt, Sanibel’s natural resources director, to Judie Zimomra, Sanibel’s city manager, the average award for the grant’s Community Capacity Building and Planning priority area is expected to be $250,000, more than last year’s $225,000 amount.
In terms of what Sanibel and Captiva pay for the sea level rise project, the full details and potential partners are still being determined.
However, the CCP requested $20,000 of in-kind funding from Sanibel, consistent with the city’s commitment for last year’s proposal. That previous proposal also included $64,000 in-kind support from CCP and $20,000 from SCCF, according to another email from Milbrandt to Zimomra.
If awarded the grant, Laird said Sanibel and Captiva will get a good idea of what future sea level rise projects will be in order to protect the island. She said one grant can open the door to others.
“Those are the real expensive projects when we start building anything,” Laird said. “The idea is to get a good blueprint that the communities buy into, that then leads to bigger grants to do implementation.”
But before future projects can be considered, the focus is on the 2021 NFWF grant so that Sanibel and Captiva can plan, prepare and protect their lifestyle.
“We need to take action to preserve our islands and our way of life,” Laird said.
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