The pay off is big for one local project promoting going green.

On Thursday, the Elizabeth River Project will receive grants totaling more than $1 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

More than 60 businesses in the Elizabeth River watershed have been working for a decade to protect the environment.

The businesses have already created or restored 818 acres of wildlife habitat and reduced pollution by more than 180 million pounds since the project was launched in 1997.   They've also reduced, recycled or reused more than one billion pounds of material at their sites.

The Elizabeth River was declared by the Chesapeake Bay Program to be one of the most toxic estuaries in the Chesapeake Bay.  More than 50 percent of the wetlands along the river have been lost in the 400 years since Captain John Smith sailed into the harbor in 1607.  To accommodate modern ships and cities, the Elizabeth River has been filled to two-thirds her normal width and dredged to twice her normal depth