The state won a $16 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for projects designed to improve water quality in Lake Champlain, officials announced at the Statehouse on Wednesday.
The grant from the Regional Conservation Partnership Program can be used to pay for conservation practices that prevent nutrient runoff from farms and forest. These practices include planting cover crops, buffer zones between fields and waterways, and infrastructure improvements around farm yards.
She said the money will be prioritized in areas of the lake where phosphorus pollution is the greatest, such as the Missisquoi Bay, St. Albans Bay and South Lake segments of the lake, officials said. The is a cap of $480,000 per farm of the life of the five-year farm bill. Drew said very few projects cost that much.
The competitive grant application was included in the reauthorization of the 2014 Farm Bill, which has been one of the largest sources for federal money for the state Lake Champlain clean up efforts. Nationally, the program includes $1.2 billion in grant money.
“This substantially adds momentum. This multiplies our efforts to benefit the lake and all who use it,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement Wednesday. “We made this a Farm Bill priority as a way to sharpen our focus and proactively address the factors that we already know are affecting the Lake’s water quality. These grants will undergird a widening public-private partnership, in recognition that all Vermonters are in this together.”
The state received another $710,980 million grant from the USDA for technical assistance to farms.
In August, the state received a $45 million grant from the USDA for similar conservation projects.
