A recent round of Ohio Environmental Protection Agency grants funded 116 water systems in 58 counties across the state, including Athens. The grant consists of $2.7 million and is aimed toward improving public water systems and drinking water.
The round of EPA funding, known as mini grants, is focused on providing money to smaller projects viewed as voluntary or nonessential.
“Our goal is to, as these grants are really designed to help empower at the local level, their local decisions and helping them to address each community has unique water challenges and priorities,” Chief of the Division of Drinking and Groundwaters at the Ohio EPA Amy Klei said. “But it really gets down to our big picture goal of making sure that we have the continued delivery of safe water across the states.”
Klei spoke on the impetus for this round of funding. Klei mentioned the EPA noticed problems with infrastructure in smaller communities.
“There's been a lot of deferred maintenance, deferred planning, deferred saving for when water plants and infrastructure need to be replaced,” Klei said. “A lot of infrastructure that's in the ground pipes, and some of our plants were over 50 years old.”
Two of the main areas of funding were emergency generators and source water systems. Athens County was a recipient of two EPA grants from the state. One grant went to Amesville, and another went to Athens City.
“It's really important to invest in, but a lot of times there might be higher priorities, and to have a dedicated fund in order to do that was essential,” Klei said.
According to Assistant City Engineer Gillian Garland, the grant Athens City received was $30,000 for a well-abandonment project.
Abandonment grants, as well as source water protection grants, have been funded for two years now in Athens, according to Klei.
Well abandonment is the process of sealing off a water well in order to prevent groundwater contamination. This well, located on the bike path near Richland Avenue, stands in the way of the current city-county sewer expansion project. The well is no longer functioning and has received the EPA funding to be shut down.
“We come up with these ideas in conversations with the communities across Ohio, and we find out what their needs are,” Klei said.
Klei also mentioned for larger infrastructure projects, the smaller projects, but also environmentally important, don’t fit into the funds.
“For a relatively small amount of money, they can have a big impact on the future sustainability of water plants,” Klei said.
The project has not yet started, however, the City is expecting to pay for the project themselves and receive reimbursement from the state.
