Long Island Sound Partnership funding to implement the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) has increased since 2016, reaching $62.8 million in 2025. The increased funding has resulted in more projects on the ground, improving the health of Long Island Sound. Each year, the Long Island Sound Partnership Management Conference develops a work plan to implement projects for the CCMP based on appropriations approved by Congress. The work plan budget shows how the funding is distributed to partners as grants to be used for ongoing projects and programs, including the Long Island Sound Futures Fund, the Long Island Sound Bioextraction Initiative, the Long Island Sound Water Quality Monitoring Program, and the Long Island Sound Partnership Research Grant Program.
The Long Island Sound Partnership is established under Sections 320 and 119 of the federal Clean Water Act, which also authorizes funding for the program through EPA. The LIS Partnership receives funding under these authorizations.
In 2025, the Partnership received $40,002,000 under section 119 of the Clean Water Act as an EPA Geographic Program. EPA administers 12 Geographic Programs, which are long-standing, geographic specific programs that help protect local ecosystems and communities from storm damage and other extreme weather events, habitat loss, and pollution.
In 2025, the Partnership received $850,000 under section 320 of the Clean Water Act through the National Estuary Program. The National Estuary Program (NEP) is an EPA place-based program to protect and restore the water quality and ecological integrity of estuaries of national significance. Currently, 28 estuaries located along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts and in Puerto Rico are designated as estuaries of national significance.
On November 6, 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021 (P.L. 117-58) to enhance the nation’s infrastructure and resilience. The IIJA funds, for the first year (2022) of a five-year period, include $909,800 in NEP allocations under section 320 of the Clean Water Act, and $21,000,000 under section 119 of the Clean Water Act. In total, the Partnership will be receiving $106,000,000 under section 119 for a five-year period (FY 2022-2026).
Grant recipients under the Geographic Program appropriation must meet cost-share/matching fund requirements—40 percent for implementation projects and five percent for education and outreach projects. For example, a $60,000 grant requires $40,000 in non-federal cost-share. Grant recipients under the National Estuary Program authorization must meet match requirements of 50 percent for all projects. In 2025 grant recipients provided $23,062,829 in cost-share.
In addition to matching fund requirements the states and municipalities provide additional funds for projects to implement the Long Island Sound Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan, the Partnership has taken the opportunity of guaranteed funding and waived match to fund multi-year projects through FY25, such as NYSDEC WQIP and MassDEP wastewater treatment plant upgrades, that began in FY22.
The LIS Partnership budget is organized into the nine Program Activities and three IIJA Activities outlined below; the FY2025 budget breakdown by Program Activity is:
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