As American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dollars begin to roll out from the Environmental Protection Agency, states are scrambling to develop and implement their plans to distribute the funds to local communities and utilities. In some cases, money has already been distributed; in others, the agencies responsible for distribution are waiting for EPA to work out the details of how the money will be allocated.
But while funding may be merely a trickle now, agency and industry sources say that when the flood of dollars eventually arrives, it will buoy cash-strapped communities, creating jobs and advancing projects that were previously stalled.