While still grappling with issues resulting from Superstorm Sandy's devastating blow, water and wastewater treatment plants in New York and New Jersey have made a slew of emergency and interim repairs in the last 16 months to keep operations online and systems running. Industry executives say that further work needs to be done, however, to make more permanent repairs and improve resiliency at these plants, most of which are low-lying and highly vulnerable to flooding in severe storms like Sandy.
To that end, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced one of the newest sources of funding for such work last year, a $569-million grant to New York and New Jersey, whose environmental infrastructure was hit hardest by the October 2012 storm. The funding, $340 million of which is earmarked for New York State and $229 million for New Jersey, will be awarded as grants to the states under their respective federal Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act State Revolving Fund programs.