November 2010 Update 

The New Bedford Harbor trustee council has completed 29 restoration-related projects since 1998. In addition, the Council has funded and implemented 3 additional projects and is working with applicants on another 2 restoration projects. To date, over $19.1 million has been expended on restoration projects. Click on the Projects tab at the right to read about individual restoration efforts.

Clean-up of the site, under the direction of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is not yet complete. Because this effort will continue for another 20 years or more, the trustees are carefully coordinating restoration with clean-up. Restoration actions that are not directly dependent on the progress of the clean-up have been evaluated for near-term implementation. The trustee council, through each of its four funding rounds, has been working with citizens, businesses, academic institutions, state and local governments, and non-profit organizations to develop and select restoration projects for the New Bedford Harbor environment.

Restoration activities are designed to restore natural resources that were lost, injured, or destroyed by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) releases in New Bedford Harbor. Priorities for restoration include marshes and wetlands, water quality, living resources, habitats, and shellfish and endangered species. Because it has already funded two recreation projects the council no longer considers recreation areas as a restoration priority. The Round IV Federal Funding Opportunity provided guidance under B. Program Priorities that “unlike previous funding rounds “recreation areas” is no longer considered to be a Council restoration priority. The guidance went on to say the “the Council believes that sufficient funding has already been provided through previous funding rounds for recreational areas.

The council initiated Rounds I and II to receive ideas for restoration projects. In Round I, these ideas formed the alternatives for the council’s Restoration Plan/Environmental Impact Statement (RP/EIS). The environmental assessment for Round II provided the analysis for the submitted restoration ideas. For Round III and IV, the council requested that the public submit applications for restoration project grants. Restoration projects selected for funding would be awarded through grants or cooperative agreements. Environmental assessments were prepared for Round III and IV. The RP/EIS and the environmental assessments are located in the Case Documents tab to the right.

A summary of the funding rounds follows:

Funding Round	Initiated (Federal Register)	Record of Decision Signed	Ideas/Applications Submitted	Ideas/Applications Selected	Initial Funding Amount
I	October 1995	September 1998	56	11	$4.2 million
II	August 1999	January 2001	35	17	$9.3 million
III	February 2005	June 2006	15	6	$5.7 million
IV	January 2009	Pending	15	Pending	Pending

A summary of the restoration projects funding to date:

Restoration Priority	No. of Restoration Projects	Total Funding	Locations	Results
Recreation Areas	2	$4,515,000	New Bedford	Riverside and Taber Parks
Living Resources	3	$3,078,000	New Bedford, Acushnet, Dartmouth Fairhaven	Acushnet River fish passage: 4.4 miles. Shellfish restoration
Plans/Studies	5	$243,000	New Bedford Acushnet River watershed, Buzzards Bay	Wetland inventory, monitoring boat, open space plan, artificial reef study
Water Quality	2	$229,000	New Bedford, Fairhaven	Sconticut Neck water quality study, hurricane barrier study
Habitat	14	$8,170,000	Acushnet, Fairhaven, Freetown	Land protection: 646 acres protected. Eeelgrass restoration: 4 acres transplanted
Marshes/Wetlands	5	$1,297,000	Dartmouth, Fairhaven	Padanaram marsh: 6.5 acres restored. Ongoing: Marsh Island, Winsegansett marsh Terminated: Nonquitt marsh
Endangered Species	3	$1,564,000	Buzzards Bay	Restoration and management of tern colonies on nesting islands