The State of Vermont, in partnership with 25 organizations, agencies, businesses and non-profits, received funding in 2015 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). This $16 million grant was the second largest in the country and is helping landowners in the Lake Champlain Basin of Vermont and New York invest in best conservation practices to improve water quality. The Lake Champlain RCPP provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural and forest landowners to develop and implement site-specific farm and forest projects that will directly improve water quality in streams and rivers that flow towards Lake Champlain. The RCPP funds will also help conserve important and environmentally critical agricultural lands, and restore and protect wetlands crucial to attenuating sediment and nutrients and slowing floodwaters. These funds are committed through 2020, but may be extended, or new sources made available, in the future. The Wetland Restoration Model Site Prioritization Map (this layer) builds on a model initially developed in 2007 ranked potential wetland restoration sites based on various physical characteristics of an area. For more information, read the RCPP Wetland Restoration Site Prioritization Project Map Introduction document.