The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will invest in 73 projects to protect and improve watersheds in 36 counties in the US state.
The watershed protection projects are aimed at improving watersheds, storm water runoff, acid mine drainage and educational programmes, among other environmental efforts.
The Environmental Stewardship Fund's Growing Greener programme will invest $9.72m in 57 projects around the state of Pennsylvania. An additional project will receive $72,912 funding from the surface mining conservation and reclamation grant.
Fifteen further projects totalling $3.12m will be funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency's Section 319 nonpoint source management programme, which was created through the federal Clean Water Act to help reduce water pollution from nonpoint sources.
The projects will reduce nonpoint source pollution in watersheds where streams are impaired by implementing agricultural and storm water best-management practices; developing, repairing or installing passive systems to treat abandoned mine drainage; and supporting the establishment of riparian buffers, among other goals.
DEP secretary Mike Krancer said the funding from DEP, through local communities and watershed groups, will support projects that enhance and protect Pennsylvania's water quality.
"That includes projects that address abandoned mine drainage, stream bank restoration, storm water reductions and agricultural runoff," he said.
The Growing Greener programme aims to invest in projects that protect watersheds from impairment due to nonpoint source pollution or those that will restore damaged waterways.
In the latest grant round, DEP received 130 applications, totalling around $24.5m.
