Does your municipality – or a homeowner's association, business, or nonprofit in your municipality – have a site with three or more acres of impervious surfaces (e.g., roofs, parking lots, roads)? The Clean Water Act requires all three-acre sites to obtain the Three-Acre Permit to capture and treat the stormwater that runs off these surfaces. Most three-acre sites are eligible for a grant to support design and permitting to alleviate the costs of regulatory compliance.
Clean water projects can be expensive. Your municipality can apply for this grant now, or fully fund design and permitting costs itself beginning in 2025.
What to Know About These Grants
To comply with the Three-Acre Permit, three-acre sites are required to treat stormwater runoff from their impervious surfaces to reduce pollution entering water.
- Affected municipal properties include some municipal offices, public works/highway garages, water or wastewater treatment facilities, and industrial parks. Private properties include hospitals, housing subdivisions, business parks, and larger businesses.
- A grant of up to $49,000 is available per site, which includes up to $19,999 for permit application and review costs and up to $30,000 for engineering costs.
- The time commitment for applying is 15 to 40 minutes to gather necessary information and fill out the application! You don’t need to have taken any steps toward permit obtainment to apply.
- You can ask the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) to pay your consultant directly.
- Funding is expected to be fully allocated by September 1, 2024, so apply now if your municipality wants assistance with design and permitting costs.
- If you already applied for Three-Acre Permit coverage (i.e., Full Notice of Intent submittal), you can be reimbursed for costs incurred following Three-Acre Permit obtainment/authorization, as long as all work occurred on or after March 3, 2021.
- Three-acre sites that have been integrated into a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permit phosphorus reduction target are no longer subject to the Three-Acre Permit standards or timeline and are ineligible to receive this grant.
- For more information and to apply, visit http://tinyurl.com/VTPOA.
What Defines a Three-Acre Site?
A “three-acre site” is an impervious surface of three or more acres that:
- has never had an operational stormwater permit, or
- was permitted to standards in place prior to the 2002 Stormwater Management Manual
The List of Properties Required to Have a Three-Acre Permit
In 2020, ANR developed a list of sites with three or more acres of impervious surfaces in the Lake Champlain, Lake Memphremagog, and stormwater-impaired watershed. It identifies properties that are required to obtain permit coverage and retrofit their site to improve the level of stormwater treatment. This list will be updated in the future as information for the rest of the state becomes available. It is a good place to start for determining whether municipal or private property is required to have a permit and is eligible for this grant.
How to Alert Property Owners About This Grant
You can use these ANR materials to alert your municipality's property owners to this grant opportunity. The materials can be included digitally on the municipal website, in newsletters, or in other locations and also can be printed as handouts.
- Infographic for a Facebook post
- Word document containing a caption for the Facebook post infographic and content for a Front Porch Forum post
- QR code linking to the permit program website
- Flyer about the permit program
Please note that ANR has separate funding programs for Manufactured Housing Communities and schools.