Nonpoint Source Program
Helping states, territories, and tribes perform a wide variety of activities to prevent nonpoint source pollution from degrading water quality.
On this page:
- About the Program
- Types of Assistance
- How This Program Helps Build Resilience
- Connections to Other EPA, Federal, or Non-Governmental Efforts
About the Program
The 1987 amendments to the Clean Water Act established the Section 319 Nonpoint Source (NPS) Program to address NPS pollution. NPS pollution is caused when rainfall or snowmelt, moving over and through the ground, picks up and carries natural and human-made pollutants, depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and groundwaters. Increased precipitation from extreme weather will compound NPS pollution.
Types of Assistance
The NPS program provides grant money to states, territories, and tribes to support a wide variety of activities including technical assistance, financial assistance, education, training, technology transfer, demonstration projects, and monitoring to assess the success of specific NPS implementation projects. Receiving a NPS grant to implement projects for improving water quality first requires an EPA-approved watershed-based plan. More information about the NPS program is available in the National Nonpoint Source Program highlights report.
How This Program Helps Build Resilience
NPS pollution is presently the dominant source of water quality pollution, causing harmful effects on drinking water supplies, recreation, fisheries, and wildlife. To address multiple pollutants and their risks, the NPS program promotes the use of watershed planning to protect and restore water resources (see Handbook for Developing Watershed Plans to Restore and Protect Our Waters). Watershed plans outline best management practices (BMPs) for implementation. BMPs can include bioretention systems, floodplain and stream restoration or stabilization, wetland creation, reforestation, and agricultural conservation approaches like cover crops and riparian buffers. In addition to improving water quality, nature-based practices can also create climate change adaptation and natural hazard mitigation co-benefits (e.g., resilience to droughts, floods, fires, urban heat islands, landslides, erosion, and harmful algal blooms). If plan priorities align, a partnership between hazard or risk reduction plans with watershed or water quality improvement plans could emerge. The annual number of projects implementing practices with climate/hazard mitigation co-benefits is reported as part of the Office of Water Climate Adaptation Implementation Plan. Over 300 Section 319 funded projects with potential climate co-benefits were reported in FY23.
The following success stories document specific examples of water quality improvements that remove stressors and therefore enhance the resilience of water bodies. More success stories about restoring water bodies impaired by NPS pollution can be found in an online database.
Connections to Other EPA, Federal, or Non-Governmental Efforts
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the EPA have a Memorandum of Agreement that provides a collaborative framework for jointly working on activities related to both hazard mitigation and environmental management to create more resilient communities. The NPS program is currently working with FEMA’s hazard mitigation assistance programs, which provide funding for eligible mitigation measures that help reduce disaster losses. Hazard mitigation actions or projects can also provide water quality improvements as a side benefit of reducing hazard risks. However, hazard mitigation projects are more likely to improve water quality if they are coordinated with other state or community water quality goals, strategies, or planned action items.