April 23

USDA will provide $155 million in new grants and loans to 82 rural communities to improve access to safe drinking water and effective waste water treatment.  Most of the funds will go to low income rural areas.

The grants and loans will be used mostly to improve waste water systems, eliminating raw sewage in ground water, for example.

Projects receiving the funding announced Thursday will protect the Potomac River in Maryland, the Chaumont Bay of Lake Ontario in New York and two presidentially designated American Heritage rivers: the St. John's in Florida and the Blackstone in Massachusetts.