U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Administrator David Fotouhi announced Friday in Smithfield that the agency will disburse $37 million to localities to aid Chesapeake Bay pollution reduction and clean up efforts. An additional $53 million in matching grant funds will be awarded to 83 projects across the watershed, 28 of them Virginia-based.
“These awards will empower local towns to implement community level, clean water projects, and they will help fund regional partnerships to keep our soil healthier, restore habitats, and secure our thriving regional economy,” said Fotouhi, who was joined by U.S. Rep. Jennifer Kiggans, R-Virginia Beach.
As tiny fiddler crabs scuttled through mud beside an oyster mount that is part of a nearby marshland restoration project, Fotouhi explained that the money would be split between the Chesapeake Small Watersheds Grants Program and the Chesapeake Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Grants Program.
The former fuels projects that directly support clean water, habitat restoration and species protection. The latter consists of projects that help implement agricultural strategies, stormwater best practices, and other methods that prevent sediment, phosphorus, and nitrogen from ending up in the Bay.
Virginia’s chief Chesapeake Bay organization welcomed the collaborative funding opportunity.
“Restoring this vital resource takes collaboration across political boundaries, between federal, state, and local governments. And it takes everyone. Industries, universities, nonprofits, small businesses, and individuals,” Chesapeake Bay Commission Executive Director Anna Killius said. “All of us are empowered with the knowledge and the resources to conserve our waters, our lands, and our living resources that we so care about.”
The grants are awarded once a year through the EPA and are coordinated by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit chartered by Congress. They are a key to achieving goals identified by federal, state, and local partnerships through the Chesapeake Bay Program.
In comparison to past years, before matching grants the agency awarded $44 million earlier this year and $22 million in 2024.
Small watershed projects that received grants include nature-based stormwater infrastructure across Richmond Public Schools, a process to enhance grazing management practices, living shoreline assessment and design for Leesylvania State Park. A total of 68 projects across the watershed have received awards.
Funding for the nutrient and sediment reduction grants will go towards projects like regional watershed roundtables, and riparian forest buffers and forest cover expansion on private lands and others totaling 16 projects.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation was one of the organizations to receive a grant from this round of funding. Of their award, $737,000 will help create roughly 5.5 acres of sanctuary oyster reef in the Hampton River. The aim is to produce three million oysters to be planted in other reefs.
“This grant will go a long way toward restoring and preserving oyster habitat in the Hampton River and surrounding areas,” Chesapeake Bay Foundation Virginia Oyster Restoration Manager Jackie Shannon said in a release.
This annual grant comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s move to repeal Executive Order 13508, signed in 2009 under former President Barack Obama, which directed the EPA to bring state and local agencies together to identify sources of pollutants and ways to reduce sediment and nutrient loads running off into the Bay.
Trump said the significant progress made by states that are part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement to reduce Bay pollutants deemed the old order unnecessary.
Leaders in Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C. recently resigned the agreement.
Trump said the states “have collectively met 100 percent of their goal for sediment reduction, 90 percent of their goal for phosphorus reduction, and 57 percent of their goal for nitrogen reduction” and revoking the old order cleared up the “lack of clarity (that) has led to harmful economic impacts.”
After Trump revoked Executive Order 13508 in September, Virginia environmental groups including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the commonwealth’s two U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner said it’s the wrong time to ease up on managing the Bay.
They also said that this move could lead to the breakdown of interstate and interagency cooperation without the EPA at the helm.
When asked about the feared impacts of the president’s action at the funding announcement Friday, Fotouhi said it ensures that “every federal dollar goes directly to improving water quality,” which “removes a more heavy-handed federal approach and empowers state and local communities to continue making that progress.”
The full impact of the rescission of the former order is yet to be realized, according to CBF leadership.
The new watershed agreement comprises four main goals focused on habitat, clean water, healthy landscapes, and more engaged communities, which each of the states will strive to meet over the next 15 years.
Fotouhi emphasized that the agreement is still in place and stated that the new executive order “reconfirmed and reiterated our administration’s commitment to the Chesapeake Bay.”
The full lists of grant awardees can be found here for the small watershed projects and here for the nutrient and sediment reduction grants.
