According to the Center for Rural Pennsylvania’s definition of rural and urban, Pennsylvania has 48 rural counties and 19 urban counties. In 2010, nearly 3.5 million residents, or 27% of the state’s 12.7 million residents, lived in a rural county.
USDA is a dozen projects in Pennsylvania through the Community Facilities Direct Loan and Grant Program. These investments will be for such purposes as to build or upgrade schools, libraries, clinics, and public safety facilities.
Included in this round of loans and grants are one to the Eagle McClure Hose Company Number One of Lackawanna County will use a $1.8 million loan to build an addition to the Old Forge firehouse. The addition will be approximately 5,000-sq.ft. and will be used to house fire apparatus. The Innes Hose Company in Bradford County will use a combination of a $237,000 loan and $289,000 grant to purchase a Spartan fire truck and Chevy 3500 rescue truck.
The Lancaster Township Fire Department was awarded $2.4 million to construct a fire station. The new facility will be a pre-engineered, structural steel facility with five bays including space for operations, storage, meetings, and administrative functions. The Plumsteadville Volunteer Fire Company in Bucks County received a loan of $378,000 to remove the deteriorating substation and rebuild two-bay garages on the same footprint. This project is essential to the fire company because the roof is separating from the walls, causing water to seep into the interior of the concrete block, making it disintegrate from the inside out.
The Warren County Law Enforcement Department will use $63,000 to purchase emergency communications response equipment, including portable radios, vehicle dash cameras, body cameras, a repeater system, and a recording system. The county currently does not own a repeater system for its 911 center and its deputies do not have body cameras.
The Mahanoy City Borough in Schuylkill County will use their loan of $47,500 to purchase and upfit a new patrol vehicle and dump truck. The borough’s police department currently only has four vehicles and one of the vehicles is at the end of its useful life. East Union Township, also in Schuylkill County, received a $40,700 loan and $7,600 grant to purchase and upfit a patrol interceptor for its law enforcement department.
The Lansford Borough in Carbon County will use the combination of a $27,000 loan and $15,600 grant to purchase and upfit a patrol vehicle. The vehicle is needed because the borough’s police department only has three vehicles, which limits its ability to provide service to the community. Fayette County received a loan of $51 million to begin construction on a prison in Uniontown. Since the current facility is 131-years-old, it is no longer feasible to retrofit in order to accommodate the current prison population.
Another project will replace the roof of Girardville Borough’s city with a Rural Development loan of $49,500. The building’s roof needs to be replaced due to significant deterioration. The Town of Bloomsburg in Columbia County was awarded a $1.4 million loan and $601,300 grant to purchase a dump truck and skid steer for the public works department, a fire truck for the fire department, a vehicle for the codes department, and radio equipment and five cruisers for the law enforcement department
CPI Foundation, was approved for a $7.7 million loan to begin the process of constructing a health and science facility on the campus of the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology in Centre County. This facility is needed to address the growing demand for skilled health technicians and will expand the applicant’s health care program offerings for post-secondary students.
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