BALTIMORE –
U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) today joined officials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) in announcing more than $12.9 million for the Chesapeake Stewardship Grant Program to help restore the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

 The Senator, who is chair of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife, helped secure $10 million in funding this year for the Chesapeake Bay watershed grants program, the largest amount the program has ever received. In FY 2007, Senator Cardin helped secure $8 million for the grant program, and in FY 2008, he helped secure a total of $9.8 million.

“I am committed to ensuring that we have the resources that are needed to move forward with innovative projects that will help restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay watershed,” said
Senator Cardin.
  “The Chesapeake Stewardship Grant Program is a model program that allows communities and organizations in our region to develop new, inventive and cost-effective projects that will help us clean up the Bay’s watershed.”

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, in partnership with EPA and the Chesapeake Bay Program, has awarded 24 grants in the Bay watershed of between $200,000 and $1 million each to support innovative approaches to reduce sediment and nutrients in the Bay and its tributaries.
 
The Chesapeake Bay watershed is comprised of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Delaware and New York.
  Today’s announcement includes grants for Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York.

The Maryland grants that were announced today include:

• 
  
  Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education
  ($312,177) – to work on strategies to restore infiltration in disturbed and compacted soils in partnership with Herring Run Watershed, Jones Falls Watershed, and Parks and People Foundation;
• 
  
  Herring Run Watershed Association
  ($450,000) – to look at nutrient and bacteria reduction strategies including neighborhood and community-based restoration strategies developed by partnerships with Baltimore City and County, the Jones Falls (JFWA) and Herring Run Watershed Associations (HRWA);
• 
  
  Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts
  ($345,000) – to work with farms to implement econ-based trading options to reduce carbon emissions, nutrients, and to benefit the Bay’s watershed wildlife; and,
• 
  
  University
  of Maryland and other universities ($786,384)
  – to address dry manure application in seven watersheds, including the Choptank and the Nanticoke rivers.

In April, President Obama issued an Executive Order proclaiming the Chesapeake

Bay a “National Treasure” and vowing to increase federal support for restoration efforts. As chairman of the Water and Wildlife Subcommittee, Senator Cardin is committed to reauthorizing the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program, which is a unique federal-state regional partnership that has coordinated and conducted the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay since 1983.

For more information about grants that were awarded as part of the Chesapeake Stewardship Grant Program
click on

http://www.chesapeakebay.net/
.