The Department of Environmental Conservation’s Clean Water Initiative Program yesterday announced over $1.6 million in Ecosystem Restoration Grants for projects to improve water quality across Vermont.
DEC is awarding more than fifty clean water improvement projects, targeting Vermont’s impaired and at-risk rivers, lakes, and wetlands.
The grants will go to municipalities, regional planning commissions, natural resource conservation districts, watershed organizations, and other partners to address nutrient and sediment pollution sources caused by stormwater runoff and erosion.
The Town of Jericho is one of the awardees. The town will install a large infiltration basin which will decrease stormwater runoff that drains into the Browns River and mitigate flooding.
Another project, supported by the Windham Regional Commission and the Town of Newfane, involves restoring 16 miles of Adams Brook which was heavily damaged from Tropical Storm Irene. The town of Rutland, another grant recipient, will modify an existing stormwater treatment facility to reduce stormwater runoff and streambank erosion to help restore Moon Brook.
The next round of Ecosystem Restoration Grant awards will be announced in late October, with a third grant round anticipated in early 2018.