EPA Funding Supports Green Infrastructure

By Erin WeaverThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced 17 communities awarded technical assistance to expand green infrastructure. The communities will receive a combined total of $950,000 through EPA’s “Strategic Agenda to Protect Waters and Build More Livable Communities Through Green Infrastructure.”

The agency will hire experts to help communities improve water quality with techniques that include permeable hardscapes, green roofs, rainwater harvesting, and street design. The 17 communities include small towns and large cities across a range of climate zones, with projects from preservation of healthy waterways to restoration of degraded waters. Atlanta, Georgia, for example, will develop conceptual designs from a pre-existing project, in which residents of an economically depressed area prone to flooding established a “wish list” of infrastructure projects that includes rain-watered community gardens and open green spaces. The 17 communities were chosen from more than 150 respondents to EPA’s call for letters of interest.