The Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program has two grant solicitations open: one for our FY18 Municipal Mini-grant Program ($128,274 available), and the other to provide support for inter-municipal and regional water quality monitoring programs ($45,000 available).
The deadline for applications to both grant programs is Tuesday, August 1, 2017 by 4:00 PM.
Information about the grant programs and eligibility is posted at https://buzzardsbay.org/our-program/funding/.
The Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program is offering free laboratory testing to assist Buzzards Bay watershed municipal public works departments, boards of health, and natural resource departments monitor stormwater discharges suspected of contributing to water quality degradation of beaches, shellfish beds, and other resources in the Buzzards Bay watershed. To learn more, read this notice.
Crew removing a manhole cover to collect stormwater samples for testing.
Oyster population counts in West Falmouth Harbor during the spring of 2016.
Through the U.S. EPA’s SNEP program, the Buzzards Bay NEP awarded a grant to the Town of Falmouth to evaluate water quality benefits of oyster aquaculture (the project was titled “West Falmouth Harbor Oyster Reef Development Project”; see our award announcement). The grant paid for this video, and helped fund a study of the effectiveness of using oyster aquaculture to help mitigate nitrogen pollution. The project was sited in West Falmouth Harbor, which is the subject of a watershed nitrogen TMDL issued by EPA and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The video highlights the town’s oyster aquaculture program and describes the benefits of oysters to water quality, and was part of the project’s outreach campaign. You can also read the project’s final report (WF-Oyster-Bed-Final-Report-4-24-17) that includes estimates of nitrogen removal through the harvest of shellfish. The Town of Falmouth considered the pilot project a success and expanded oyster aquaculture efforts in West Falmouth Harbor during 2016. Oyster rafts are visible in the Snug Harbor area of West Falmouth Harbor in the Google Maps 2016 imagery available at this link: https://goo.gl/maps/QCAH5Xu2eVA2.
In 2015, 1500 bags of oyster remote set was delivered by Town of Falmouth staff to the staging area at Snug Harbor in West Falmouth Harbor.