Oct. 3, 2001 – Five grants totaling almost $8 million are headed for the Planning and Natural Resources Department (DPNR). The funds, from the U.S. Commerce Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, come right on the heels of three grants totaling $900,000 from the same two agencies that were awarded a month ago.
Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) awarded DPNR's Fish and Wildlife Division a continuation grant for $62,300, to develop a cooperative program to determine the monthly commercial harvest in weight and dollar value of all marine commercial fishing resources landed in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
NOAA has also awarded DPNR a new grant for the Coastal Zone Management program in the amount of $100,000, to provide for expanded coral reef monitoring. A NOAA grant last year was for establishing methods of collecting data and assessing reef systems; the new one will expand monitoring sites around St. Thomas and St. John. The local CZM program has just received one of four non-monetary Walter B. Jones awards for, among other things, being "effective in advancing the goals of the federal CZM act."
DPNR's Division of Environmental Protection has received three grants from the EPA:
– $1,221,605, a partial award for a grant earmarked to implement an integrated and comprehensive environmental program.
– $58,694, to assist in developing the Beach Monitoring and Notification Program.
– $6,374,076, a supplemental amendment to last year's $406,854 grant for capital improvements to drinking water systems. The expiration date for this grant was extended to Sept. 30, 2005.
