The EPA recently awarded $283,000 million to Maryland to help monitor beach water quality and better alert swimmers.
Recently the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled over $1 million in grant funding to help protect public health in coastal and Great Lakes beach communities in the Mid-Atlantic Region. The funding is being awarded to Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to assist with water quality monitoring and public notification programs for local beaches.
Under the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act, eligible states, territories, and tribes use the grant funds to monitor their beaches for bacteria, maintain and operate a public notification system to alert beachgoers, provide technical assistance to communities to assess pollution sources at specific beaches, and report annually to EPA on the results of monitoring and notification actions.
Since 2001, EPA has awarded nearly $216 million nationwide in BEACH Act grants to test beach waters for indicators of illness-causing bacteria and help with public notification and identification of the problem. This program is essential for protecting the public health of beachgoers across the country.
Contingent upon their meeting the eligibility requirements, EPA’s 2023 BEACH Act grant funding will be allocated to as follows: Delaware – $223,000; Maryland – $283,000; Pennsylvania – $235,000; and Virginia $291,000.
