This $168,775 Formula Grant award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Water Pollution Control State, Interstate, and Tribal Program Support (CFDA 66.419) will allow the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) to carry out a comprehensive program to maintain, protect, and improve the water quality of Tennessee's rivers, lakes, streams, groundwater, and other waterbodies.
The key activities to be performed under this 3-year grant include: conducting field surveys and macroinvertebrate/chemical sample collections at 11 sentinel reference streams; maintaining an interagency partnership to develop a water quality monitoring program; and combining data with other Southeast states. The anticipated deliverables include analyzing macroinvertebrate and diatom samples, completing expert verification of new taxa, adding specimens to a reference collection, and uploading photographs to a digital library. This work is expected to prevent degradation of unimpaired waterbodies and reduce the number of impaired waterbodies in Tennessee.