Water restoration projects receive Mass. environmental grants

SAVE THE BAY in Providence is one of 13 organizations receiving grants under the Massachusetts Environmental Trust. Save The Bay's $49,374 grant will allow the group to install a fishway at the Draka Dam on the Three Mile River in Taunton. / COURTESY SAVE THE BAY
SAVE THE BAY in Providence is one of 13 organizations receiving grants under the Massachusetts Environmental Trust. Save The Bay's $49,374 grant will allow the group to install a fishway at the Draka Dam on the Three Mile River in Taunton. / COURTESY SAVE THE BAY

BOSTON – The Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs has awarded $429,239 in Massachusetts Environmental Trust grants to support 13 local projects to improve water quality and restoration of the state’s rivers, ponds and watersheds.

Since its inception in 1988, the trust has awarded nearly 650 grants totaling more than $17 million to support efforts to protect and enhance the state’s water resources.

The Massachusetts Environmental Trust is one of the state’s largest funding sources for water quality projects and is supported through the sale of specialty environmental license plates bearing the images of the Right Whale, the Leaping Brook Trout and the Blackstone Valley Mill.

The fiscal year 2015 project awards include $49,374 to Save The Bay in Providence to install a fishway at the Draka Dam on the Three Mile River in Taunton, and $15,000 to the Westport River Watershed Association to reduce pollution in the Westport River.

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The complete list of projects is as follows:

  • MassAudubon (Lincoln, Mass.) – $50,000 to develop a sustainable management plan for the Horseshoe Crab harvest in Wellfleet.
  • Save The Bay (Providence) – $49,374 to install a fishway at the Draka Dam on the Three Mile River in Taunton.
  • Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies (Provincetown, Mass.) – $45,000 to investigate if pharmaceuticals from wastewater are bioaccumulating in marine plants and animals.
  • Silent Spring Institute (Newton, Mass.) – $40,000 to investigate how perfluorinated chemicals leach from consumer products into domestic wastewater and the Cape Cod Aquifer.
  • Town of Plymouth – $38,854 to comprehensively track overall water quality during one summer in 35 Great Ponds.
  • Town of Amherst – $36,100 to study the contamination of Fearing Brook, and to develop and begin to implement remedial strategies to improve the water quality of the brook.
  • Charles River Watershed Association (Weston, Mass.) – $34,000 to improve Charles River water quality testing and public notification.
  • Ipswich River Watershed Association (Ipswich, Mass.) – $30,000 to support the engineering/design phase of the removal of the South Middleton Dam on the Ipswich River.
  • Town of Great Barrington – $30,000 to study water quality in Lake Mansfield.
  • Clean River Project Inc. (Methuen, Mass.) – $25,000 to remove large debris such as automobiles and tires from the Merrimack River.
  • Trout Unlimited (Southeast Massachusetts Chapter) – $20,000 to support fish passage and ecological restoration at Century Bog in Wareham.
  • Housatonic Valley Association (Lee, Mass.) – $15,911 to design and install stormwater vegetative buffers to reduce roadway runoff into Churchill Brook in Pittsfield.
  • Westport River Watershed Association (Westport, Mass.) – $15,000 to identify sources of fecal coliform pollution in the West Branch of the Westport River.

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