EPA to award $569 million for NY-NJ treatment plants

Water and wastewater treatment plants in New York and New Jersey that suffered damage by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 will share in $569 million in funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make repairs and upgrades. About $340 million of the funding, which was authorized in the federal Sandy relief bill passed in January, will go to New York and $229 million will go to New Jersey to finance improvements in drinking water and wastewater treatment plant upgrades and to fund “green” water infrastructure systems designed to address combined sewer overflows. EPA Region 2 Administrator Judith Enck said that projects eligible for the funding will be those that can increase the ability of the treatment plants to withstand future Sandy-level storms. In a statement, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo commented, “these funds will allow localities across the state to repair vital infrastructure damaged by Superstorm Sandy—as well as to build back smarter and stronger to better withstand future natural disasters and flooding,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) said in a statement.