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Letter to Municipal Officials
Dear Municipal Official,
Environmental issues can present significant challenges for municipalities, particularly in today's world of limited budgets and high expectations. To help cities and towns in navigating the Commonwealth's environmental regulations, MassDEP has developed a set of Municipal Compliance Fact Sheets that specifically address the compliance issues that are most frequently observed by MassDEP when dealing with municipalities.
This information is designed to assist your community in improving and maintaining its environmental compliance. Each fact sheet highlights MassDEP's technical assistance tools, outreach materials, and grant and loan opportunities, and includes MassDEP points of contact who can help you obtain additional information about individual topics. A web-link for each Fact Sheet can be found below.
As you read through these fact sheets, you will see that MassDEP offers a wide array of technical and financial assistance that can help municipalities improve their compliance with state environmental rules and meet your community's environmental goals. I want to take this opportunity to let you know about an exciting and important new grant program becoming available in the coming months. The Commonwealth will make a total of $22 million available over the next three years to control emissions from diesel buses used by public schools and regional transit authorities. The bus retrofit projects funded by these grants will significantly reduce air pollution and associated health impacts in your municipality. Details will be available this fall about how your school district (or school bus contractor) can apply for school bus retrofit funds. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation has started discussing the disbursement of funds for diesel bus emission controls with the regional transit authorities.
Over time, MassDEP hopes to add fact sheets to this series to address additional topics that are of concern to municipalities, and we welcome your suggestions. If you would like to suggest additional topics, please take a moment to complete the feedback form on our web site. Also, while on MassDEP's web site, please consider subscribing to our free quarterly "EnviroMatters" e-Newsletter or signing-up to receive email notification of new or recently promulgated regulations. Finally, if you would like to talk to MassDEP about any topic, program, or regulation, I encourage you to contact the Regional Director in your area:
I hope you find these Municipal Compliance Fact Sheets and other resources useful. I look forward to working collaboratively with you in our joint efforts to be stewards of the Massachusetts environment.
Sincerely,
Arleen O'Donnell
Acting Commissioner |
laws and rules
