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The Harlan County Fiscal Court received an update on projects from the Harlan County Soil Conservation District during the panel’s regular meeting for April.

Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley called on David Howard of the Harlan County Soil Conservation District to provide the annual report to the magistrates.

“I want to let you know some of the things we’ve been doing,” Howard said. “Our district provided matching funds for grants; we hired contractors to administer the installation of three septic systems in the county in the past year.”

Howard advised the magistrates the conservation district gave away approximately 600 trees as part of the annual tree giveaway to celebrate Earth Day.

“We put a lot of emphasis on environmental education,” Howard said. “To that end, we provided five scholarships this year of $1,000 each. We also did seven soil and water conservation scholarships of $750 each.”

According to Howard, funding was also provided for 69 students to attend environmental education programs at Pine Mountain Settlement School.

“We also provided funding and materials for our annual art and writing contest for Harlan County students where winners from each school were awarded cash prizes that totaled $1,930,” Howard said.

Howard reported the Harlan County Soil and Conservation District partners with the Harlan County Extension Office and are currently in the process of reviewing applications for grant funding for agriculture.

“That fund has increased over the years,” Howard said. “It’s increased now to $94,789. We would encourage anybody that has an agriculture related project to contact us about the process of applying for one of those grants.”

Howard mentioned the district had received a grant from the Division of Abandoned Mine Lands for a project including kayak and canoe ramps on the Cumberland River and its tributaries.

“After seven years of reviews and studies, we were just approved last month,” Howard said. “We’re currently working on the bidding process for that.”

Mosley reacted to the AML grant information.

“It’s exciting to hear that the river ramp project is moving forward,” Mosley said. “(Magistrate) Bill Moore and I have talked about that a lot over the last year or so, the Highsplint Lake one in particular, the people up there keep asking about it.”