Public Notices

Acting Commissioner Claudette C. Lewis is pleased to announce that for Fiscal Year 2007, federal grant monies are available under Section 319(h) of the Clean Water Act for government agencies and nonprofit organizations to address non-point sources of pollution in the territory. Two public meetings are scheduled to explain the grant application process as follows:

ISLAND	-	DATE & TIME		LOCATION
St. Croix	-	Wednesday 6:00pm January 31, 2007		DPNR Main Conference Room 45 Mars Hill Frederiksted, St. Croix
St. Thomas		Friday 1:00pm February 2, 2007	-	DPNR DEP Conference Room Cyril E. King Airport, 2nd Floor Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas

There are two different categories of funding available:

1. Base (traditional 319 NPS funding for education and demonstration of innovative best management practices) and
    

2. Incremental (water quality restoration funding). 

Examples of Base fundable projects include:

• Demonstration and evaluation of innovative Best Management Practices (BMPs) for activities such as agriculture, stormwater, onsite wastewater systems, etc. 

• NPS pollution awareness and educational activities including community based educational effort (storm drain stenciling, public service announcements, etc.). 

• Smart Growth and Low Impact Development Demonstration and Education projects. 

• Monitoring that quantifies mass loading of nutrients, or pathogens from properly functioning conventional onsite wastewater treatment systems to surface waters. 

• Monitoring that quantifies changes in water quality and aquatic life resulting from urbanization.

In contrast to the Base funding, the goal of Incremental funds is to restore waters impaired by non-point source pollution.  An official list of USVI's impaired waters, called the 303(d) list, for a two year period 2005-2006, can be viewed in the Publications section (Water Quality management) and at
                                          http://dpnr.gov.vi/dep/pubs/USVI2006_303dList.pdf.  

For FY'07, proposals addressing any of these criteria listed below will be given greater priority in the review process:

• Watershed and subwatershed restoration strategies. 

• Identification and targeting of critical areas for BMP implementation. 

• Monitoring for changes in mass loading of pollutants that includes before/after components with adequate baseline period and appropriate features for trend assessment such as  upstream/downstream and control/treatment paired watersheds.

Guidelines for the development of NPS Pollution Control and Implementation proposals may be obtained via this website. See links below to download grant guidelines:

• Microsoft Word (DOC)  http://www.dpnr.gov.vi/dep/pub/RFPNPS_III_Revised07dn.doc

• Adobe Acrobat (PDF)
  http://www.dpnr.gov.vi/dep/RFPNPS_III_Revised07dn.pdf