A chunk of money has been freed up toward the ongoing restoration of the St. Louis River Estuary.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, both D-Minn., announced the $1.75 million federal grant for the project in a news release on Monday.

The grant, awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, is earmarked toward projects at Grassy Point and Kingsbury Bay in the Twin Ports. It brings to $7.77 million the total amount invested in the project under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, according to the news release.

Since 2010, the initiative has provided more than $2.5 billion to fund more than 4,700 projects throughout the Great Lakes region, it said. The St. Louis Estuary "area of concern" is the second-largest such entity in the U.S., according to the news release, draining 3,634 square miles of watershed and encompassing a 1,020-square-mile area. It covers the lower 39 miles of the St. Louis River, from upstream of Cloquet.