COMMUNITY WATER CHESTNUT PULL
East Providence, RI: East Providence Mayor Bob DaSilva poses with an invasive water chestnut seed during a visit to Turner Reservoir in July to thank local volunteers for helping to harvest invasive water chestnuts. The Community Water Chestnut Pull was part of a SNEP Watershed Implementation Grant to NEIWPCC to restore habitats in the Blackstone and Ten Mile River Watersheds. The grant provides funding and technical assistance to municipalities to implement these types of projects, to increase local capacity, demonstrate ways to address common challenges, and increase community leaders’ understanding of the benefit of restoration projects.
Have a photo you want to submit? Submit your photos with a short caption and photo credit with permission of the photo owner to Reilly.Adam@epa.gov with the subject “SNEP Photo Submission.” Photos will be posted to the SNEP Photo Gallery on our website. Our favorite photo of the month will be featured in our next newsletter, so keep those submissions coming! Click to view the complete SNEP Media Gallery
Program Updates
On October 6, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is announcing the award of $4.6 Million in SNEP funds for new projects in Rhode Island, and new technical assistance and partnerships with local organizations working for clean water and healthy coastal ecosystems in Southeast New England through the SNEP Watershed Implementation Grants program, the SNEP Network, and EPA-SNEP base funds. This event is free and open to the public. Please join us at 1:30p.m. at 200 Allens Ave. in Providence, RI (there is street parking on Public Street). For more information about the event, please email Tom Ardito (tardito@estuaries.org), Director, SNEP Watershed Implementation Grants.
SNEP-SOAR Application Review Now in Process. The application period for the first year of the SOAR Fund closed on September 15. SNEP received over $2.6M in eligible requests, which are now in the process of being reviewed by a carefully selected review panel.
SNEP Hosts Salt Marsh Permitting Meeting. On September 19, SNEP hosted Massachusetts salt marsh regulators and restoration practitioners in an all-day meeting to discuss opportunities to work together to better navigate the existing salt marsh restoration permitting process. Final deliverables from that workshop are being developed. Once complete, all meeting deliverables will be posted to the SNEP website.
SNEP Team Attends Marstons Mills Grant Announcement where Secretary Tepper (Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs) presented the Barnstable Clean Water Coalition (BCWC) with $1.6M in grant funding to purchase 78 acres of retired cranberry bog land. This grant builds upon previously funded work through SNEP and will allow BCWC to restore the bog complex more holistically. This story is featured in the Cape Cod Times.