Last year’s state budget included $54 million to assist local governments with their stormwater needs in state fiscal year 2011. The funding came from the state building construction account.
Putting funding out there to deal with local stormwater problems is important because, after all, polluted stormwater runoff is the number one threat to our waters and to Puget Sound.
We’ve put together a couple of maps that show where those local investments are happening. See them here: Western Washington and Eastern Washington.
To understand the maps you may want to understand the funding. First, we broke the $54 million in approximate half, using some of it for Ecology’s administration costs.
The FY 2011 Stormwater Retrofit/LID Competitive Grants are the red dots on the maps. In this program, 43 cities and counties get a share of $23.4 million to plan, design and build stormwater retrofit and low-impact development facility projects.
White dots on the maps show cities that received funding through the FY 2011 Municipal Stormwater Capacity Grants Program. The light gray shaded counties signify the counties that got this funding. This $23.5 million program was split among all 116 municipalities subject to municipal stormwater regulations. The funding is to assist local governments build staffing capacity, improve stormwater research, data management capabilities, and water quality monitoring.
Black-and-white dots on the map show the cities that are using the capacity grants money for stormwater facility construction, which includes retrofit of existing facilities and low-impact development techniques. Dark gray shows the counties. The amounts given to the municipalities were based on population.
Scroll beyond the maps to see the project descriptions of the just-announced retrofit/LID competitive grants. There may be one near you!
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