{"id":298835,"date":"2019-05-06T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T20:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=298835"},"modified":"2019-05-06T06:00:24","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T20:00:24","slug":"nmi-guam-each-eligible-for-150k-to-improve-drinking-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/nmi-guam-each-eligible-for-150k-to-improve-drinking-water\/","title":{"rendered":"NMI, Guam each eligible for $150K to improve drinking water"},"content":{"rendered":"

HAGATNA<\/strong>\u2014The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced the availability of nearly $87 million in grant funding to assist states, tribes, and territories with improving drinking water.\u00a0 The CNMI and Guam are eligible to receive $150,000 each.<\/p>\n

\u201cEPA is committed to ensuring all Americans, regardless of their zip code, have access to safe and clean drinking water,\u201d\u00a0said EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. \u201cWith these grants, EPA is fulfilling its core mission of providing states, tribes, and territories with the resources needed to protect children from lead exposure and other contaminants and ensure all American families have safe drinking water.\u201d<\/p>\n

States, tribes, and territories are eligible to receive funding from two new EPA drinking water grant programs established by the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Under EPA\u2019s new\u00a0\u201cVoluntary Lead Testing in Schools and Child Care\u201d\u00a0grant program, EPA will award $43.7 million in grants to fund testing for lead in drinking water at schools and child care programs. Testing results carried out using grant funds must be made publicly available.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Under EPA\u2019s new\u00a0\u201cAssistance for Small and Disadvantaged Communities\u201d\u00a0grant program, EPA will award $42.8 million in grants to support underserved communities with bringing public drinking water systems into compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act. Funding can also be used for conducting household water quality testing, including testing for unregulated contaminants.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Under the Trump Administration, EPA has taken actions to modernize aging water infrastructure and reduce exposure to contaminants in drinking water:<\/p>\n

In 2018 the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds committed $9.6 billion in drinking water and clean water infrastructure loans and refinancing and disbursed $8.8 billion for drinking water and clean water infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, EPA\u2019s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program has issued eight loans totaling over $2 billion in WIFIA credit assistance to help finance over $4 billion for water infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n

\u2022 EPA is undertaking the first major overhaul of the Lead and Copper Rule since 1991. EPA anticipates releasing the proposed rule in summer 2019.<\/p>\n

State, tribal, and territorial grant allotments for the two grant programs are available on EPA\u2019s website. As a next step, program participants will be asked to submit workplans to EPA outlining their proposed project(s) for approval and funding. EPA will announce funding details for WIIN\u2019s third newly-created grant program dedicated to reducing lead in drinking water systems in summer 2019.<\/p>\n

For more information, visit: \u00a0https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/safewater\/grants. (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HAGATNA\u2014The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced the availability of nearly $87 million in grant…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,1806,257],"class_list":["post-298835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam","tag-hagatna","tag-nmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}