A pair of RESTORE Act grants totaling more than $3 million has been awarded to two coastal Mississippi wastewater improvement projects.
The U.S. Department of Treasury awarded the grants under the Gulf Coast Restoration Fund to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). Specifically, the federal money will go toward continuing work on the Jackson County Utility Authority (JCUA) Colonial Estates Area Septic System Abatement Project and for the Hancock County Utility Authority (HCUA) Cedar Point Wastewater Pump Station Improvement Project.
U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) celebrated the grant funding on Friday.
“I’ve heard from constituents and local leaders about the problems caused by old septic systems and the need for wastewater infrastructure improvements on the Gulf Coast,” Hyde-Smith said. “The use of RESTORE Act trust funds for work in Jackson and Hancock counties is not only welcome, but warranted for the health of the people and our coastal ecology.”
The JCUA project will receive a total of $1,700,919 for phase two of the septic abatement process, allowing the conversion and connection of 125 household septic tanks to the JCUA public sewer system. A statement says “the work is a continuation of an effort to decommission septic tanks in order to lessen the risk of downstream water contamination.”
$1,368,081 is awarded to the HCUA project to upgrade the existing Cedar Point pump station in Bay St. Louis to reduce the potential of wastewater overflows due to pump station reliability and capacity issues. The objective of the project is to mitigate overflow contamination in adjacent coastal stream, the Jourdan River, the Bay of St. Louis, and the Gulf of Mexico.
The Gulf Coast Restoration Fund was established in 2012 under the RESTORE Act, providing a portion of revenue from the Deepwater Horizon disaster fines to Gulf Coast states.
