The Department of Environmental Protection this week awarded 14 grants totaling $630,000 to help communities protect their sources of drinking water.

Source water protection programs are locally designed, voluntary efforts to protect drinking water sources used by public water systems. The program usually takes one of two forms: watershed protection for surface water sources; and wellhead protection for groundwater sources.

The grants are funded by the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund set-aside. Money is used by municipalities or community water systems to develop a local source water protection program.

The projects promote a greater awareness of watershed protection and provide a complete picture of potential contamination sources, both point and nonpoint, along with an assessment of their susceptibility as a threat to the water supply.

For more information, visit the Source Water Protection webpage.

4/21/2006