The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program is handing out $2.1 million in grants to help fund environmental programs as far from the bay as the Shenandoah Valley.

The grants, announced last week, will support 34 projects in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which is suffering from an excess of nitrogen and phosphorus that kill fish, create dead zones and destroy ecologically valuable underwater grasses.

The grant beneficiaries range from a free soil-testing program in Henrico County's Henricopolis Soil and Water Conservation District to the study of converting animal waste to energy in Rockingham and Augusta counties.

"These locally driven conservation projects not only engage communities in restoring their local streams and watersheds, collectively they are key to restoring one of the country's most vital natural resources, the Chesapeake Bay," said Mike Slattery, director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's eastern office.

For years, the Henricopolis conservation district has offered vouchers for free soil tests to Henrico homeowners, but the program was losing its funding.

Last week, the district learned that it may keep the program -- and expand it significantly -- as a boost to water quality in the James River basin.

The bay program and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation conservation group is giving the district $20,000. The grant will let manager Barbara McGarry give away 2,500 vouchers for the $7 tests.

"We've never given away that many in the past," she said. Last year's funding supported about 400 tests.

Soil tests determine a lawn's fertilizer needs, reducing the chances that excess nitrogen and phosphorous will drain into streams and rivers to fuel harmful algae blooms.

Other Virginia grants will be used in: