EPA Awards $7M for NPS Pollution to Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced nearly $7 million in grants and funding to Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to protect and improve water quality statewide. 

The $424,716 grant to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, $4,846,500 grant to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and $1,693,000 grant to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality are part of EPA's Nonpoint Source Implementation Grant program as outlined in section 319 of the Clean Water Act to control water pollution. 

“This grant supports preserving and protecting [the states'] water resources and ensuring communities have clean water,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Cosmo Servidio. “By working in partnership with [Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia], we can help implement necessary best management practices to reduce nonpoint source pollution in communities throughout the states.”

Nonpoint source pollution (NPS) is caused when rainfall or snowmelt, moving over and through the ground, picks up and carries natural and human-made pollutants, depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and groundwater. Controlling NPS is especially important since one in three Americans get their drinking water from public systems that rely on seasonal and rain-dependent streams.

The projects to be funded with Delaware's grant will develop and implement projects and best management practices in the areas of conservation planning, nutrient management, nutrient load reductions, watershed plan implementation, and restoration of streams and wetlands.

In Pennsylvania, the funding will help the Commonwealth focus on priority watersheds with water quality impairments. The major sources of nonpoint source pollution in the state, including abandoned mine drainage, agriculture, and urban stormwater runoff, will be addressed through structural and non-structural best management practices, as well as through watershed planning, monitoring, and education/outreach programs and activities.

Virginia will use the funding to implement watershed improvement plans that reduce nutrients, bacteria, sediment, and other pollutants from direct sources and runoff. Funding will also support restoration of waterbodies, and improvement plans to support the delisting of stream segments that are currently designated as impaired.

Source: EPA