Vermont Business Magazine Vermont’s congressional delegation announced on Tuesday a combined $18.97 million from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to Vermont’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF).
The CWSRF program is a federal-state partnership that provides communities a permanent, independent source of low-cost financing for a wide range of water quality infrastructure projects.
The DWSRF is a federal-state partnership to help ensure safe drinking water.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said: “These EPA clean water programs are so important to towns in Vermont and to communities across the country.
A high priority for me on the Appropriations Committee continues to be to secure strong funding for both the EPA Clean Water and EPA Drinking Water programs this year, and our success in this year’s budget is reflected in these investments coming to Vermont.” “I’m very pleased Vermont will receive roughly $19 million in much-needed funding from the EPA to improve drinking water and wastewater systems,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who serves on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which authorized the EPA State Revolving Fund programs.
“At a time when families in parts of Vermont are struggling with PFAS contamination and untreated or partially treated sewage being dumped into our waterways, these funds will help modernize our aging water infrastructure.
However, if we are serious about addressing the huge backlog of water system projects in Vermont and across the country, we must make a significant and prolonged investment on the federal level.
During the next 20 years, according to estimates, Vermont must invest $510 million to upgrade small community water systems, alone.
Earlier in this Congress, Sanders and Leahy also helped draft a $1 trillion proposal to rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
In the House, Welch helped draft the LIFT America Act, a comprehensive 21st Century infrastructure package that invests in in broadband, health care, the electric grid, renewable energy, and contains $22.56 billion for drinking water infrastructure.

The PSA applied for $200,000 in grant funds from the Virginia Department of Health, but the application was denied.
“It’s inexplicable.
Part of Fairview Road already has public water access, but the water line doesn’t extend all the way through the Fairview community.
To find the needed $500,000 in grant money, the PSA is requesting funds from the Coalfields Water Development Fund (CWDF), LENOWISCO and the VDH.
“We have talked with their staff.
When Dishman asked VDH why it denied the PSA’s funding request, VDH responded that Scott County “has too many projects going on with their funding.” “It doesn’t make sense,” Dishman said.
“Fairview is a project that VDH should want to happen as soon as possible because of the health issues out there, and they normally want to participate in projects with other agencies.” What’s next?
Dishman said the PSA hopes to get as much funding as it can from the CWDF and LENOWISCO to get the project back on track.
In the meantime, the BOS agreed to write a letter to elected officials and to VDH reiterating the need for the project.
“I don’t think that’s a reason to penalize us on this project.”

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – The Ohio EPA is considering funding a project in Youngstown that would change the city’s sewer systems, improve a parking lot, modify the Covelli Centre Pond and remove contaminated materials.
The funding would be available through the Water Pollution Control Loan Fund program and would help Youngstown in its plan to reroute, create and abandon some of the city’s current sewer systems.
The city’s long-term plan is to connect a new sanitary sewer network to a future, proposed tunnel under the Mahoning River and its wastewater treatment plant.
It would then abandon the temporary connection.
The on-going project would abandon about 2550 lineal feet of existing sanitary sewers and manholes.
There would also be site restoration.
The estimated cost of this related project is $16.3 million.
It is scheduled to be designed by spring 2020 and constructed by fall 2025.
The public has through August 27 to review the assessment and provide comments.
The assessment is available here.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S.
Senator Maria Cantwell announced today the inclusion of an additional $70 million in funding to the Department of Defense for environmental restoration in areas struggling with water contamination due to their proximity to military installations in the National Defense Authorization Act.
Such areas include Fairchild Air Force Base, Joint Base Lewis McChord and Naval Station Whidbey Island.
"Clean drinking water is a must for every Washingtonian, and for families throughout our country," Cantwell said.
"From Airway Heights to Coupville and Whidbey Island, this funding will ensure we continue to clean up groundwater in communities affected by these chemicals."
PFAS are chemicals found in firefighting foams that had been used at military installations and civilian airports.
The chemicals have been detected in groundwater and drinking water wells near these entities.
While the health effects of these chemicals are still being determined, studies have linked PFAS exposure to developmental damage, certain cancers and immune system dysfunction.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act Thursday.
It next moves on to the Senate for a final vote, expected to take place the following week.

The historic $2.7 billion of voter-approved bond money will go to elevating two Bay Area dams, at Los Vaqueros Reservoir near Livermore and Pacheco Reservoir east of Gilroy, as well as to the development of two much larger dams in the Central Valley.
Collectively, the projects would add about 4.3 million acre feet of water storage across the state, the equivalent of about a dozen of San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy reservoirs.
Although the larger dams, at the proposed 13-mile-long Sites Reservoir along the Sacramento River and 18-mile-long Temperance Flat Reservoir on the San Joaquin River, are still well short of the money they need to get off the ground, the Bay Area projects are now close to moving forward.
“Getting the money is a greater step toward water reliability for the Bay Area region,” said Oliver Symonds, a spokesman for the Contra Costa Water District, which was allocated $459 million for the proposed $980 million expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir.
The reservoir, which holds water piped in from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, would grow by 70 percent, increasing its capacity to 275,000 acre-feet of water, enough to supply more than a half million households for a year.
With $485 million of Prop.
1 money, the Santa Clara Valley Water District plans to construct a new $969 million dam on Pacheco Creek in eastern Santa Clara County, in the footprint of a smaller dam.
The project would store 500,000 acre feet of water piped in from the nearby Sacramento River.
“But it’s a step in the right direction.” Watson said he is pursuing funding from other sources, including the many water agencies that would benefit from Sites, largely districts that provide water for farms.
1 funding for water storage is the most the state has allocated since construction of the State Water Project, which consists of 21 dams and hundreds of miles of canals, built largely in the 1960s.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The City of Newburgh and other municipalities with contaminated drinking water supplies would have as much as $240 million more in federal cleanup grant funds under legislation being pushed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
On Tuesday Gillibrand advocated for passage of the “Contaminant and Lead Electronic Accounting and Reporting Requirements for Drinking Water Act,” which was introduced in the U.S. Senate on July 11.
Available grant money to help municipalities meet Safe Drinking Water Act requirements and test their water systems would increase from the current $60 million to $230 million in the 2019 fiscal year and $300 million in fiscal years 2020 through 2023.
“Clean water is something that every New Yorker should have access to,” Gillibrand said.
“But we see that isn’t the case.” The legislation would also expand Environmental Protection Agency reporting requirements to include the listing of public systems in violation of safe water standards or with an exemption from national regulations.
It would also authorize the EPA to provide technical assistance to municipalities whose water supplies violate Safe Drinking Water Act requirements and create a database of health results for lead and other contaminants.

File Photo Melville Harris, Gleaner Writer The St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation says it needs approximately $20 million to truck water to drought-stricken communities in the parish.
At its recently held monthly meeting the municipal corporation passed two resolutions seeking funding from the Ministry of Local Governmennt and Community Development and the Ministry of Agriculture.
The resolutions, which were unanimously passed, sought $10 million from each ministry.
A resolution was also passed seeking to have the relaxation of a regulation for truckers who will be engaged in the trucking of water for domestic use to obtain certiication of sterilization from the National Water commission.
Councillors pointed out that the cost to have a truck certified as sterilized was estimated at about $25,000 and that truckers were not willing pay the cost.
They complained about the time it took to get this certification.
The councillors also want a reduction in the cost of water bought from the NWC to truck to householders, pointiong out that many of the householders were NWC customers and that the utility did not have adequate trucks to provide water for all its customers.
In the second resolution to the Ministry of Agriculture, the municipal corporation says the remaining $10 million was needed to truck water to farmers who were badly affected by the drought.
At a recent post cabinet press breifing, Minister of Local Government and Community Development Desmond McKenszie announced that $30 million would be allocated to municipalities for trucking water to householders affected by drought.
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The United Nations is seeking to raise $111 million to meet humanitarian needs in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), where millions of people face malnutrition, shortage medicine, and lack of access to safe drinking water.
One of things I will be doing when I return to New York in talking to the Member States of the UN is trying to draw people’s attention to the very real humanitarian challenges here, says Lowcock.
(Image Credit: Pixabay) The United Nations is seeking to raise USD 111 million to meet humanitarian needs in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), where millions of people face malnutrition, shortage medicine, and lack of access to safe drinking water, the Organization’s top relief official said on Wednesday.
“There is a humanitarian need, we can meet it and we can tell people a convincing and persuasive story about how their money is used if they provide us with more funds,” said Mark Lowcock, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, at a press conference held in the country’s capital, Pyongyang.
During the visit, he was able to see first-hand both progress that has been made on the humanitarian front and the persisting challenges.
“There are though large numbers of people who still need assistance; there is a significant problem of malnutrition with something like 20 percent of children stunted because of malnutrition which impairs their life chances,” he said.
Mr. Lowcock also said that about half of all children in rural areas of the country are not drinking safe water.
“Too much of the water is contaminated, which is a cause of disease and threatens the development of too many children,” he said.
He also noted that there is a shortage of drugs and medical supplies and equipment, making it very difficult for medical authorities to meet the needs of all the people “in a way that would pass basic humanitarian thresholds.” He said that North Korean authorities are “keen to work with humanitarian agencies and are open to additional humanitarian assistance, and are also keen to deal with humanitarian issues separately from political dynamics.” According to the Needs and Priorities Plan published by the UN a few months ago, $111 million is needed to meet humanitarian needs in the areas of health, water and sanitation, and food security for about 6 million people.
“One of things I will be doing when I return to New York in talking to the Member States of the UN is trying to draw people’s attention to the very real humanitarian challenges here, and to say to them that the UN has good programmes, which can save lives, and we have better access across the country for UN staff than we have had in the past,” he said.

Dhanbad: More than 5 lakh residents of Jharia are facing water scarcity for over a month because of a delay in the repair of a 25km pipeline at Patharbangla locality near Bhaga station by Mineral Area Development Authority (Mada) owing to cash crunch.
Jharia residents have been suffering water crisis for over a month because of a leak in the 25km pipeline that supplies water from Jamadoba plant to Jharia.
Expressing concern, former councillor of Ward 37 of Jharia Anup Sao said, "Lesser supply of water creates lower pressure in the pipeline due to which several areas situated on higher altitude such as Upper Rajbari Road, Poddar Para and some parts of Koiribandh do not get any water for 2-3 days in a week."
Sahu said they had taken up the issue with Mada authorities several times, but they had cited funds crunch as the reason behind their inaction.
SDO of Jharia division of Mada Shravan Kumar said the repair work would cost Rs 10 lakh.
"The salaries of our employees are pending for more than 26 months.
Therefore, we are unable to repair the pipeline immediately.
We are waiting for some more funds after which we will issue a tender to implement the project through an agency as we are short-staffed," he said.
Kumar said they were also waiting for the right time to begin the repair work because it would necessitate stoppage of water supply for at least three days.
"Public notices will have to be issued in the newspapers informing people about the disruption of water supply," he said.

Come Take a Look News partner, News10NBC More than $1 billion has been allocated through the Clean Water Infrastructure Act.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday $275 million in funding to protect and improve water quality.
The funding is part of the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act and the Intermunicipal Water Infrastructure Grants Program, is part of the Governor’s $2.5 billion Clean Water Infrastructure Act of 2017.
More than $1 billion has been allocated through the Clean Water Infrastructure Act to address clean water and drinking water challenges in New York.
“Water infrastructure is the key to economic development and lays the groundwork for future growth and prosperity,” Governor Cuomo said.
“We are committed to ensuring that all New Yorkers have access to clean water, and I urge local leaders to take advantage of these grant opportunities to make a real difference for the municipalities they serve.” Municipalities, county or town improvement districts and certain other entities are eligible to apply for funding.
The New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation and Department of Health will assess all projects for which applications have been received.
They will evaluate them based on several factors, including protection of water quality, benefits to public health and readiness to proceed expeditiously.