A state agency and an authority agreed this week to spend $1.1 million on a pair of new comfort stations in two state parks in Niagara County.

The facilities in Fort Niagara and Four Mile Creek state parks will be funded with money reserved for the Niagara River Greenway, following a vote Monday by a committee consisting of the state parks office and the State Power Authority.

The two governmental bodies sit on a two-member committee that controls $3 million in annual funds for projects in the Greenway, the planned system of interconnected green spaces from Buffalo to Youngstown.

A coalition of 11 environmental and civic organizations, meanwhile, has questioned whether funding these projects, as well as three other proposals, conflicts with established rules governing Greenway money, which prohibits the funds from being used for operations and maintenance of projects before Aug. 31, 2007.

“We recognize that municipalities and agencies face budget gaps,” the Niagara Relicensing Environmental Coalition wrote in an April 30 letter to the Niagara River Greenway Commission, the oversight body that endorsed both projects last week. “But if Greenway funds are used to cover basic operation and maintenance costs, . . . we will have little progress to show towards our vision in 50 years.”

The Greenway Commission adopted a master plan for a trail and parks system along the Niagara

River in March 2007. Each year, $9 million, provided by the Power Authority through a 50- year deal for the federal relicensing of its Niagara Power Project, is available for projects endorsed by the commission.

The commission’s endorsement gives projects access to dedicated Greenway dollars.

In May 2008, the Greenway Commission rejected the Sanborn Area Historical Society’s proposal to build public restrooms and a septic system at the Sanborn-Lewiston Farm Museum on Saunders Settlement Road.

Plans for a $450,000 comfort station at Four Mile Creek call for a 1,350-square-foot building, with restrooms and showers, as well as laundry, utility and housekeeping rooms, said John Dennee, park engineer for the state parks office. It would replace a comfort station that has foundation and structural failures, the state said in its application to the Greenway Commission.

The comfort station in Fort Niagara would be located near the soccer fields, Dennee said, and plans are still considered preliminary. Costs are estimated at $560,000 for a 760- square-foot building with 300 square feet of storage space for soccer equipment, as well as restrooms and a pavilion extending off the back of the building.

A comfort station for parkgoers using the soccer fields currently is located across a “busy main park road” from the fields, according to the state’s application to the commission.

When it endorsed the comfort station proposals last week, the Greenway Commission also endorsed six other projects, including a War of 1812 Trail in Buffalo’s Black Rock section and an avian education and interpretive center facilities in Joseph Davis State Park in Lewiston.