Program for Ohio's water health could face dramatic cut in funding
H2Ohio was created by Gov. Mike DeWine. The program is run by three state agencies to achieve one goal: ensuring Ohioans have access to clean and safe water.
'We've got a lot of water,' Director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture Brian Baldridge said. 'But we need to make sure we have quality.'
Baldridge works alongside the directors of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to keep H2Ohio effective. But right now, the state budget slashes its funding.
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'In many ways, they've already achieved a lot of the things they wanted to do,' Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said.
'Not at all,' Baldridge said in response to Huffman's comment. 'This is a continuation.'
The past two fiscal years, H2Ohio received a combined $53 million to continue its work.
DeWine wanted a slight increase of about $1 million for the next two. But Ohio House members cut it by about 46%, funding it at about $14 million for fiscal year's 26 and 27 each.
In a statement, the Ohio EPA said in fiscal years 24 and 25, 400 H2Ohio grants were awarded statewide to support things like water, infrastructure, dam removal and chloride reduction. With the funding cut the EPA spokesperson tells me only 20-30 grants will be issued the next two years. They say H2Ohio has been 'instrumental in helping communities, especially small and disadvantaged ones.'
Huffman said not only does he think H2Ohio could go without all of that money, but he said the state has other priorities.
'I think there's money I that fund that we could use for many of the other programs, so it's really just a balancing,' he said.
'This is a long-term program, this is a long term vision,' Baldridge said. 'It's just all about water quality here in our state because it is so important in our state.'
The budget does still need to go through the Ohio Senate before it passes the Statehouse. Baldridge and the Ohio EPA said they are going to continue pushing for the programs funding to come back up.
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