Four Mass. Towns get $550K to Help Protect Buzzards Bay Watershed | MassLive.com

Among the grant recipients is the Town of Wareham working with Ken Foreman, research scholar in the MBL Ecosystems Center, to scale up pilot studies that showed nitrogen levels can be lowered and effluent quality improved at the Wareham Water Pollution Facility by passing effluent through biofilters composed of wood chip media.

Efforts to protect the Buzzards Bay watershed have gotten a leg up thanks to a more-than $550,000 infusion of federal grant money that four communities will put toward those efforts.

Officials and advocates in Fairhaven, New Bedford, Wareham and Westport can use the money to, among other things, create salt marsh habitat and improve efforts to treat stormwater discharge, according to Gov. Maura Healey’s office.

The grants announced Thursday are funded through the $1.1 trillion national infrastructure law, and administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to Healey’s office. The money is being channeled through the Buzzards Bay estuary program and the state’s Office of Coastal Zone Management.

The grants also leveraged some $336,000 in local, state and federal funds, Healey’s office said in its statement.

The projects “address water quality and habitat health goals while focusing on addressing defined community needs,” state Energy & Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper said, noting that the Healey’s administration is “committed to going after federal funds such as these to support communities in advancing their environmental protection priorities throughout the watershed.” Read rest of the article here.

Source: 4 Mass. towns get $550K to help protect Buzzards Bay Watershed | Masslive.com