Each year since 2005, American Water’s Environmental Grant Program has offered funds for innovative, community-based environmental projects that improve, restore or protect the watersheds, surface water and/or groundwater supplies in the communities we serve. This type of collaboration means just as much to me as the larger public-private partnerships that address the challenges of modernizing and more efficiently operating infrastructure assets across the country.
Often working with smaller local groups on projects including watershed cleanups, habitat restoration, wildlife protection, hazardous waste collection efforts, and more, part of what is appealing about the grant program is the inspiration it fosters in participants. The grant awards will be available in 13 states as follows: California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
Sharing our commitment to ensuring water quality through testing and treatment, as well as through consumer education and community source protection programs starts at the local level, and grows from there into protecting the nation’s water supplies. This program is one way to help communities play an active role in these important efforts.
To qualify, proposed projects must:
- Address a source water or watershed protection need in the community
- Be completed between May 1, 2016 and November 30, 2016
- Be a new or innovative program for the community, or serve as a significant expansion to an existing program
- Be carried out by a formal or informal partnership between two or more organizations
- Provide evidence of sustainability (continued existence after the American Water grant monies are utilized)
- Be located within one of American Water’s service areas in the following states: California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
To learn more about the qualifications to receive Environmental Grant funding, please see the 2016 Environmental Grant Brochure and Grant Application Form. By working together, we all have the ability to restore and preserve the environment and leave the world a better place than we found it.