It was announced earlier this week that Morgan and Scott Counties were among twelve Illinois counties receiving a $20,000 donation from Dakota Access Pipeline, LLC.
Specifically, the $20,000 donation will be given to the Emergency Management Agencies in both Morgan and Scott Counties.
As for how this donation will assist local Emergency Management Agencies, Morgan County Emergency Services Director Phil McCarty says the plan right now is to spread out that $20,000 to as many departments as possible.
“We’re going to use that money to spread across and try to impact as many of the emergency responder agencies – fire, law enforcement and EMS – as we can within the county. Twenty-thousand dollars, when you talk about all of the emergency responders, it doesn’t go a long way. Even though $20,000 is a significant amount of money, things aren’t cheap anymore. So we’re trying to come up with a plan for some training as well as some equipment so we can make the biggest impact for the dollar with that type of money,” explains McCarty.
McCarty says his agency was somewhat surprised by the donation, but that overall it’s been a solid relationship with the pipeline company.
“We weren’t expecting anything, this kind of was a surprise. We’re extremely happy to take this funding from them and build that partnership with Dakota Access. When they were coming through the area they were very good for us to work with and good partners for the community. There was some inconvenience when they came through and they made a mess in some areas, but they followed through on everything they said they were going to do, at least from our standpoint, so it’s a great partnership between them and we’re happy to get (the donation),” says McCarty.
McCarty says he’s spoken with other agencies around the area, and that he hopes to work with them to spread the money around in the most efficient way.
“We’ve had some discussions between the counties about what we were going to do with the money and various plans, so when our plans cross the same path, we’re certainly going to try to work together to stretch that dollar as far and as effectively as we can.” McCarty explains.
Other counties in the area who’s Emergency Management Agencies are set to receive a $20,000 donation include: Pike, Schuyler, Brown, Hancock and Adams.