DEC Awards Water Quality and Resiliency Funding to Freeville and the Town and Village of Groton

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced over $18 million dollars in grants for 12 water quality and climate resiliency projects. Of the projects announced, the Village of Freeville, Groton, and the Town of Groton were awarded funding.

The Village of Freeville was awarded $4.25 million through the water quality improvement project (WQIP) for their wastewater treatment system. Improvements include replacing the lagoons aeration system, adding a chemical feed system, a moving bed bioreactor and disc filtration facility, and installing ultraviolet disinfection, which will reduce phosphorus entering Fall Creek and improve water quality in the Cayuga Lake watershed.

For the Village of Groton, the village received $1.4 million through WQIP. Funds will go towards the installation of a belt filter press to upgrade an existing screw press, installing a conveyor from the dewatering building to a covered pad, and make other improvements within the village’s wastewater treatment plant that will reduce the amount of phosphorus discharging to the Owasco Inlet.

Lastly, the Town of Groton will receive $490,631 through WQIP for their project to replace two undersized and failing culverts on Webster Brook with a single concrete box culvert. This also includes the removal of the barrier to aquatic organism passage from by the culverts, the DEC says, and increase food resilience within the Cayuga Inlet watershed.

Additionally, the Tompkins County Soil and Water Conservation District was awarded $250,000 through WQIP to restore a degraded section of Miller Creek in the Town of Dryden. The DEC says the restoration will bring the section back to a natural and stable habitat, which they say will involve the installation of a step pool structure to prevent erosion, restore riparian buffers, and restore aquatic connectivity to benefit natural trout living in the creek.