Manatee awarded $5M federal grant for conservation land purchase

Manatee County has been awarded a $5 million grant to offset the purchase late last year of the 68-acre Crooked River Ranch in order to preserve it.

The grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is for the $11.2 million purchase of the property in Parrish. Since the county has already closed on the sale, a county spokesman says the “grant frees up more county dollars to work on protecting even more environmentally sensitive properties here in Manatee.”

Manatee commissioners voted unanimously in December to buy Crooked River Ranch, saying at the time that it “will provide for coastal resiliency, water quality protection/improvement and native habitat protection/improvement.”