September 4, 2003

DEQ Director Steven Chester today announced that a total of $100,000 in grants through the Clean Michigan Initiative Clean Water Fund were awarded to nine applicants to monitor inland public beaches for Escherichia coli. Grant recipients received either full or partial funding for their beach monitoring proposal and will post their beach monitoring data on the DEQ Beach Monitoring web site at (www.deq.state.mi.us/beach/).

Recipients of the funding are:

• The Barry-Eaton District Health Department was awarded $14,812.51 in grant funds to monitor inland beaches in Barry and Eaton Counties.

• The Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency was awarded $10,000 in grant funds to monitor inland beaches in Branch, Hillsdale, and St. Joseph Counties.

• The Central Michigan District Health Department was awarded $18,375 in grant funds to monitor inland beaches in Arenac, Clare, Gladwin, Isabella, Osceola, and Roscommon Counties.

• District Health Department #4 was awarded $10,000 in grant funds to monitor inland beaches in Alpena, Cheboygan, Montmorency, and Presque Isle Counties.

• The Genesee County Health Department was awarded $10,000 in grant funds to monitor inland beaches in Genesee County.

• The Macomb County Health Department was awarded $6,543 in grant funds to monitor inland beaches in Macomb County.

• The Muskegon County Health Department was awarded $10,000 in grant funds to monitor inland beaches in Muskegon County.

• The Oakland County Health Division was awarded $14,725.49 in grant funds to monitor inland beaches in Oakland County.

• The Ottawa County Health Department was awarded $5,544 in grant funds to monitor inland beaches in Ottawa County.

Editor’s note: DEQ news releases are available on the department’s Internet home page at www.michigan.gov/deq.

Revised September 4, 2003 by Pat Watson