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Mississippi Receives More Than $3 Million To Protect Watersheds

Release Date: 11/18/2005
Contact Information:

November 18, 2005

Contact: Laura Niles, [email protected] Phone: (404) 562-8353

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has been awarded $3,849,300 in nonpoint source (NPS) pollution grant funds by EPA to help programs in Mississippi protect and restore watersheds. The grant provides funding and assistance for projects that will help make water safe for drinking, swimming, boating, and eating fish and shellfish.

This NPS pollution grant will help restore the waters in Mississippi that are currently affected by NPS pollution. In addition to federal funding, the project also will benefit from $2,566,200 in state and local matching funds. Specifically, MDEQ will strive to restore waters by targeting priority watersheds. MDEQ’s main objective is to continue monitoring and assessments in order to provide water quality data, develop pollution budgets (known as Total Maximum Daily Loads or TMDLs), identify the pollution sources and causes, prioritize water bodies, develop watershed-based restoration plans, and restore priority impaired waters in the Pascagoula River Basin. The grant also includes an educational component to increase public knowledge about NPS pollution prevention techniques to reduce impacts on water quality. The technical component will include conducting workshops, bringing experience and expertise to river basin teams, and publishing manuals.

NPS pollution is the largest cause of water pollution in the U.S. and originates from many sources. As rainfall flows across the landscape, it gathers contaminants on the ground and accumulates additional soil and deposits it into rivers, lakes, ground water, wetlands, and coastal areas. EPA empowers states, tribes, organizations, and stakeholders to work together in order to achieve better water quality through a watershed basis.

Since the establishment of the Nonpoint Source Management Program under the Clean Water Act in 1987, EPA has provided more than $1.6 billion in federal funding alone to state, territory, and tribal partners to protect and restore our nation’s waters. For more information about efforts to control nonpoint source pollution in Mississippi, the Southeast, and around the nation, please visit: https://www.epa.gov/region4/water/nps/ .