A second grant application for the Leaf River Trail Grant, meant to finish the work begun with the first grant received, has been rejected.
In fall 2010, the city of Wadena had secured a $200,000 DNR trails grant with the intent of fixing the entire Leaf River bike trail.
Public Works Director Ron Bucholz said the project turned out to be more expensive than they thought, and it has covered about two thirds of the trail: the "bad mile" south of Leaf River and down through Sunnybrook Park.
"There was more wrong with the trail than we thought, so it cost a little more to fix it," he said.
Bucholz said the work that did get funded by the existing $200,000 grant has been completed.
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"We took the bad mile out and put some different material in there," he said.
He said the existing trail was eight feet wide, and the new part of the trail is 10 feet wide, which would benefit people using roller blades and stretching their hands out.
The Dec. 20 letter from the DNR Division of Parks and Trails said they had received 99 applications for parks and trails with requests totaling more than $33 million, with only $7 million to allocate.
