Sunday, May 5, 2013

EPA to grant $569 million for New York, New Jersey water

Space Daily via UPI: The Environmental Protection Agency will award $569 million to repair and upgrade water treatment plants damaged by Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey.

EPA said the grants -- nearly 60 percent of which will go to New York, and about 40 percent to New Jersey -- will help combat risks of flood damage and boost wastewater and drinking water facilities to withstand the effects of severe storms like Sandy.

"This funding will help vulnerable communities in New Jersey and New York become more resilient to the effects of climate change," EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck said in a statement.

The announcement Thursday follows the release of a report by Climate Central, which has headquarters in Princeton, N.J., that said Hurricane Sandy caused more than 10.9 billion gallons of sewage overflows, 32 percent of which was untreated sewage.

Most of the sewage -- resulting from damage to a number of treatment plants -- flowed into the waters of New York City and northern New Jersey in the weeks after the storm...

New Jersey National Guard in Hoboken after Hurricane Sandy, National Guard photo, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

No comments: