EAGLE RIVER — The Keweenaw County Board on Wednesday learned of a potential grant opportunity for the Emergency Operations Center through a partnership between the Keweenaw Community Foundation and the Western U.P. Planning and Development Region.

Robin Meneguzzo, KCF executive director, was scheduled to present the proposal to the board, but was not able to attend the meeting. She had requested Julia Petersen, Keweenaw Heartlands project manager for The Nature Conservancy in Michigan, to address the board.

Petersen said funding would come from the Community Change Grant program through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for environmental and climate justice activities to benefit disadvantaged communities through projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience, and build community capacity to address environmental and climate justice challenges.

The EPA announced the program last November, allocating $2 billion through from the Inflation Reduction Grant.

WUPPDR and the KCF are applying for approximately $20 million for the region, said Petersen, to provide 14 separate projects throughout Baraga, Houghton and Keweenaw counties.

One of those projects is a Community Resilience Hub, which will connect residents to resources and services to assist a community to be prepared for disruptions, including chronic stressors and acute emergencies, related to any kind of environmental or climate-related disaster.

“As part of the Community Resilience Hub project, one of the 14 projects they’ll apply for,” Petersen said. “It’s proposed as a partnership across Keweenaw County, Houghton County and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, and each of those would have an area of expertise, so to speak, for community resilience, so it’s speaking regionally about community resilience.”

For Keweenaw County, the way that is being interpreted by the partnership, is as the Emergency and Essential Operations Center, said Petersen, so that is a potential funding source for a portion of the EEOC.

In order to apply for a grant, however, the KCF requires the permission of the County Board to move forward, and also to assure the county that it will not be formally obligated.

“All the money will flow through the Community Foundation,” Petersen said, “and WUPPDR will receive a sub-award to then distribute those funds to the Emergency and Essential Operations Center.”

There will be a memorandum of understanding between the three entities that are part of the resilience hub, she said.

“While the county is committed to making the EEOC happen,” Petersen said, “we didn’t want to obligate them to the resilience hub, because that’s kind of a bigger picture.”

The board approved the proposal with the understanding that the county is not under obligation to a community resilience center.