Statewide Water Management Act Grant
This grant program is designed to assist eligible public water suppliers and municipalities with Water Management Act permits by providing funds for planning assistance, demand management, and withdrawal impact mitigation projects in local communities. The Department has determined that the focus of these grants will be for: 1) planning projects for specific watersheds or subwatersheds to identify implementation projects to improve ecological conditions; 2) conservation projects aimed to reduce the demand for water within a municipality or a watershed, such as rate studies or drought resiliency planning; and 3) withdrawal mitigation projects that address the following: improve or increase instream flow, wastewater projects that keep water local, stormwater management projects that improve recharge, reduce impervious cover and/or improve water quality, water supply operational improvements, habitat improvement, demand management, reduction of wastewater inflow and infiltration, and other projects that can be demonstrated to mitigate the impacts of water withdrawals.
- Awards: approximately 10 per year
- Reimbursement rate: 80%
FY24 Grant Round Notice, Request for Response, and Q&A
Water Management Act Statewide Grants FY2024 Notice
Water Management Act Statewide Grants FY2024 Request for Responses
Additional Resources
M36 Water Audit Opportunity
Water Management Act (WMA) registrants and permit holders may receive a free American Water Works Association (AWWA) M36 “Top-Down” Audit from a private consulting firm.
Additional Resources
Statewide GIS Mapping Technical Assistance
Public Water Suppliers (PWSs) and Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTWs), including sewer systems used for collecting and conveying wastes to a site or works for treatment or disposal, may receive free technical assistance in developing or enhancing Geographic Information System (GIS) maps of their drinking water distribution or sewer collection systems from a private consulting firm that, subject to appropriation, will be under contract with MassDEP to perform the work. The goal of this effort is to ensure that all PWSs and POTWs have accurate maps of their respective systems in order to enhance asset management, improve system operations and resiliency, and plan for and respond to emergencies. Based on the responses to this RFI, a list of PWSs and POTWs interested and ready for the GIS mapping assistance will be created. The list is expected to be used by the consultant to focus mapping work in communities that have expressed interest in proceeding with GIS mapping, and are ready to provide the necessary system information and staff review time to accomplish the program goals and create final GIS products. The RFI for FY2020 is provided below for information purposes only; grant materials for FY2021 will be available later this year. Please see the Water Utility Resilience Program (link below) to learn more.
Additional Resources
Healthy Lawns, Happy Summer Toolkit
MassDEP is pleased to introduce a ready-to-use toolkit titled “Healthy Lawn, Happy Summer”, that will provide water suppliers with educational materials customized to household water use with the goal of reducing outdoor water use by your largest residential users. To learn more and to download the toolkit, visit: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/water-conservation-pilot.
Implementation of the Healthy Lawn, Happy Summer toolkit can help meet Water Management Act (WMA) Permit requirements for Minimization Planning or be a component of a compliance plan for those PWSs not currently achieving the residential gallons per capita day performance standard. The toolkit is founded on Massachusetts-specific research, including a multi-year pilot project. Based on the success of the pilot, this toolkit was developed to help water suppliers implement the Healthy Lawn, Happy Summer program with minimal or no assistance.
In addition to providing the toolkit, MassDEP posted a Request for Interest (RFI) for PWSs that may want technical support services through MassDEP’s consultant on an as-needed basis for implementing the Toolkit in 2020. Based on the response to the RFI, a list of WMA PWSs approved to receive Toolkit Technical Assistance will be generated.
Additional Resources
Ipswich Water Supply and PFAS Grant
The goals of this grant are to address: (1) the persistent drinking water quantity challenges faced by the Ipswich River Basin; and (2) the continued prevalence and harmfulness of PFAS in drinking water in the Ipswich River Basin. This grant program is designed to provide feasibility studies, infrastructure design, water chemistry analyses and other activities needed to identify and advance water supply solutions for communities withdrawing water from the Ipswich River Basin. Applications are due 1/11/24.