MDI Biological Laboratory receives grant to improve access to safe drinking water The MDI Biological Laboratory will collaborate with the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, an office of the state Department of Health and Human Services, on a five-year grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to improve access to safe drinking water in Maine. The mitigation of contaminants, especially arsenic, in well water is the subject of the laboratory's federally funded SEPA (Science Education Partnership Award) program, which teaches data literacy to secondary school students by analyzing data from well water collected from their homes. The grant from the Maine CDC will fund the testing of 500 wells from student households in Maine in coordination with the SEPA program.