DEP Grants To Help With Pensacola Bay Watershed, Other Projects

December 14, 2013

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is using $6 million in grant money from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for water projects across the state.

The City of Pensacola will receive $200,000 for projects that improve stormwater treatment in the area of Gaberonne Swamp as well as expand citizen education about their personal impact on stormwater.

Other projects will be in the Wakulla Springs watersheds in northwest Florida, Lake Gwyn in Polk County, Lake Dora in Tavares, the Winter Haven Chain of Lakes, the Tampa Bay watershed, and the Myakka River watershed, according to the DEP.

The grants help fund important projects that specifically address nonpoint source pollution. Nonpoint source pollution comes from oil, pet waste, pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer, sediment and other contaminants that end up on the ground naturally or from human activity. Rainwater picks up these contaminants as it washes over yards, sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, roads and fields and deposits them into our surface waters as nonpoint source pollution.

Comments

2 Responses to “DEP Grants To Help With Pensacola Bay Watershed, Other Projects”

  1. Jane on December 15th, 2013 5:03 am

    People need to be aware that whatever they put on their lawns, their cars when they wash them, what they dump on the ground, what the rain washes off houses, sheds, barns, etc, ALL of it ends up in our water at some point. There are places in the United States where you can’t drink the tap water…let’s make sure Florida is not one of these places.

  2. Kathleen Reed on December 14th, 2013 8:37 am

    The title is misleading. The money is coming from EPA–NOT our messed up DEP…

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News