The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $23.8 million in Small Watershed grants to support Chesapeake Bay Watershed restoration efforts.
$11.6 million of the funding awarded is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and $9.3 million via regular annual appropriations.
This program is currently administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) through a grant from the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program Office.
The 56 grant awards will support water quality improvement, habitat restoration, and community stewardship efforts in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. In total, the grants will leverage $12.8 million in matching contributions to generate a total conservation impact of $36.6 million.
The grants were awarded through the Small Watershed Grants (SWG) program, a key funding mechanism of the federal-state Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partnership designed to support projects within the Chesapeake Bay watershed that promote voluntary, community-based efforts to protect and restore the diverse and vital habitats of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributary rivers and streams.
Major funding for these awards is provided by the EPA, with additional support provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service, U.S. Forest Service, and Altria Group.
The SWG program is administered under NFWF’s Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund (CBSF), in partnership with CBP and the EPA.
The CBSF is an ongoing 25-year partnership between NFWF and other federal and private funders that provides grant funding, technical assistance, networking and information sharing programming in support of local, on-the-ground conservation and restoration efforts to restore the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
