By Jalen Maki
Tomahawk Leader Editor
TOMAHAWK – The City of Tomahawk and several other communities that sustained damage in severe storms last summer will receive an additional $123,600.00 in aid from reserve funds, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said in a release on Thursday, Feb. 17.
The additional aid is part of DNR’s Urban Forestry Catastrophic Storm Grant program, which funds tree repair, removal or replacement within urban areas following a catastrophic storm event for which the governor has declared a State of Emergency under state statutes.
In July 2021, two severe thunderstorms hit the Tomahawk area within a matter of days, knocking out electricity for thousands of homes and damaging trees throughout the city, including in Bradley Park.
In Sept. 2021, the City of Tomahawk Common Council voted to approve a resolution allowing the city to apply for the grant funding. The city had allocated roughly $17.000.00 to storm damage cleanup in Bradley Park at the time the resolution was given the thumbs up by the council.
Two months later, the DNR announced that the City of Tomahawk, along with Marathon County, the City of Omro, the City of Ripon and the City of Watertown, would divide $104,920.00 in fiscal year 2022 state grant dollars.
The applicants initially sought a total of $228,435.00 in grant funding, the DNR said.
To assist with funding, the DNR in Nov. 2021 submitted a request to the Wisconsin State Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance to transfer additional funds from the forestry emergency reserve.
“This reserve was created in 2017, resulting from the Wisconsin ACT 59, which assists with emergency responses to significant fire, disease, infestation or other natural disasters that federal funds could not otherwise reimburse,” the DNR stated.
The DNR said the committee approved the requested amount of $123,600.00 to supplement the Urban Forestry’s Catastrophic Storm Grant offering, and as a result, all five communities are eligible to receive the total amount requested on their grant applications.
