Except for the drinking water program, housed in the State Health Department, and regulation of noncommercial oil field waste disposal activities, assigned to the State Oil and Gas Board, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) is responsible for environmental regulatory programs in the state. MDEQ regulates surface and groundwater withdrawals through its Office of Land and Water Resources and surface mining reclamation through its Office of Geology. All other environmental regulatory programs, including those federal regulatory programs delegated to Mississippi by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), are administered through MDEQ's Office of Pollution Control. The state has primacy for almost all federally delegable programs; the one notable exception is the federal hazardous waste corrective action program (under the federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984). MDEQ implements one of the premier Pollution Prevention programs in the nation.
In 2003, Mississippi had 83 hazardous waste sites listed in the Environmental Protection Agency's database, two of which were on the National Priorities List. In 1996, wetlands accounted for 13% of the state's lands. The Natural Heritage Program identifies and inventories priority wetlands. In 2001, Mississippi received $43,254,000 in federal grants from the EPA; EPA expenditures for procurement contracts in Mississippi that year amounted to $45,000.