Tamworth Pines Cooperative, located between the Lakes Region and the White Mountains in Tamworth, already had aging water and septic systems when they become a resident-owned cooperative in 2006. Since then, they’ve paid for expensive maintenance and numerous repairs across the 54-unit park, including annual pumping for septic tanks and digging up water lines.

The cooperative’s board of directors didn’t want to raise lot rent so they decided to write a grant to pay for upgrades. The process took many hours of work, including the afternoon that President Kurt Dube and Secretary Jessica Perkins knocked on all 54 doors to get signatures that proved the park’s financial need.

The park received nearly $2 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for water and sewer improvements and the project began in June.

When ARPA was enacted in 2021, it was a significant new source of potential funding for much-needed infrastructure upgrades in local resident-owned communities to improve health, safety, and environmental conditions. Since then, our ROC-NH team has helped 30 ROCs access $31 million in ARPA funds, including Tamworth Pines. 

Most of the projects fund improvements to a ROC’s drinking water and wastewater systems. Older pipes are often made of materials that are no longer safe for drinking water or they cause leaks, making the systems inefficient and expensive.