Four Franklin County towns have received Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Planning 2.0 (MVP 2.0) grants totaling $350,000 for climate change planning projects.

The MVP 2.0 program, under the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, is the next generation of the MVP program and invites municipalities to revisit past studies and plans on environmental priorities, develop a team and begin implementing projects that increase community resiliency in the face of climate change. The program launched in 2023, and Gov. Maura Healey recently announced the 2025 awards, with a total of more than $3 million being distributed to 33 communities.

In Franklin County, the allocations include $175,000 each for the community pairs of Ashfield and Conway, and Charlemont and Colrain.

“Climate resiliency impacts our community and we’re excited to work with our neighbors in Charlemont,” Colrain Town Administrator Diana Parsons said. “We have a few common interests in culverts and small bridges.”

Colrain and Charlemont applied jointly and were awarded $175,000. The funding will go toward planning and implementing a project that will impact both communities.

Parsons said the towns do not have a specific project chosen yet, but they have plenty of time. The grant funding is available until June 2027.

She added that being an MVP 2.0 town makes a community a more competitive applicant for other grants, so the town should be able to complete even more work than just the seed project being funded by MVP 2.0.

“They’re giving us a leg up on future action grants,” Parsons explained.

Ashfield and Conway also applied jointly and were awarded $175,000. Conway Town Administrator Veronique Blanchard said the two communities, much like Colrain and Charlemont, do not have concrete plans yet, but she pointed to previous MVP projects the town has undertaken as examples of planning that could be done.

With community at the forefront of these planning grants, the municipalities receiving money will work with experts in climate resilience and engage the help of an equity partner to keep equity on the planners’ minds.

“It’s more about getting the whole community involved,” Blanchard said.

Past projects

In 2018, Conway and Ashfield worked together with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments on an MVP Resiliency Plan that saw the communities convene workshops to consider climate change impacts most relevant to the towns. The top hazards included heavy rains and flooding, which the towns are certainly familiar with after the flooding of 2023; high winds, including rare events like the 2017 tornado in Conway; extreme temperatures; and dam failure.

Recommendations identified by the towns included the major priority of seeking funding to implement flood mitigation projects in the South River corridor, which Conway ended up pursuing through a partnership with GZA GeoEnvironmental. In 2024, that partnership produced a report highlighting residents’ top two picks for climate-resiliency projects: enlarging the Main Street bridge over the South River and lowering the floodplain upstream of the Burkeville Covered Bridge off Route 116. The full report can be read at bit.ly/41Is1Co.

Madison Schofield can be reached at mschofield@recorder.com. Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.