Grants

The Five Star and Urban Waters Restoration grant program seeks to develop community capacity to sustain local natural resources for future generations by providing modest financial assistance to diverse local partnerships focused on improving water quality, watersheds and the species and habitats they support.

Projects include a variety of ecological improvements along with targeted community outreach, education and stewardship. Ecological improvements may include one or more of the following: wetland, riparian, forest and coastal habitat restoration; wildlife conservation, community tree canopy enhancement, habitat, water quality and wildlife monitoring and green infrastructure best management practices for managing run-off. 

Projects should increase access to the benefits of nature, reduce the impact of environmental hazards and engage local communities, particularly underserved communities, in project planning, outreach and implementation. This program expects that applicants will represent a mixture of urban and rural communities. NFWF may use a mix of public and private funding sources to support any grant made through this program and we expect that more than half of projects awarded will support underserved communities.

The Department of Environmental Protection will be accepting applications for EPA Section 319 Watershed Restoration and Planning Grants. The purpose of these grants is to provide funding to implement nonpoint source management plans and activities identified in Pennsylvania’s Watershed Implementation Plan (WIP) watersheds. Implementation activities must address specific sources of nonpoint source pollution identified by the 2019 – 2024 Pennsylvania Nonpoint Source Management Plan.

Objectives:

• Reduce AMD-related iron, aluminum, and acidity pollutant loads.
• Reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment pollutant loads.
  
  • Implement stream restoration, bank stabilization, and/or stormwater management projects.
  • Plant, maintain, and protect riparian forest buffers.
  • Implement agricultural Best Management Practices (BMPs).

This year's grant also provides for funding to develop Watershed Implementation Plans in Hydrologic Unit Code 12 (HUC12) watersheds within Environmental Justice areas.

EPA's Brownfields Grant Funding programs provide direct funding for brownfields assessment, planning, cleanup, revolving loans, environmental job training, technical assistance, training, and/or research. This may include abandoned mine lands, communitity outreach, and environmental planning.

With this funding opportunity, we will remove longstanding barriers to brownfields reuse and spur new sustainable and environmentally just redevelopment in communities across the nation,” said Carlton Waterhouse, EPA Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Land and Emergency Management. “During this grant cycle, our expanded funding will allow us to address more sites plaguing underserved areas, and in some instances, award grants of greater funding levels. In the case of our Brownfields Cleanup Grants and our Revolving Loan Fund Grants, the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding allows us to remove the matching funds requirements.”

EPA anticipates awarding approximately 198 grants nationwide at amounts ranging from $500,000 to $2 million per award. A portion of the funding available during this grant cycle, approximately $104 million, is available through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which makes a historic investment in cleaning up legacy pollution and delivering economic benefits. With this funding more vacant and abandoned properties will be turned into community assets that will attract jobs and promote economic revitalization in communities.

A link to each of the Request for Application notices, additional application resources, and links to attend the webinars are available on the MARC Grant Application Resources page.

Working at national, regional, and local levels, NOAA funded projects educate and inspire people to use Earth systems science to improve ecosystem stewardship and increase resilience to environmental hazards. 

The NOAA Office of Education has issued a competitive funding opportunity for projects that develop the collective environmental literacy necessary for communities to take actions that build resilience to extreme weather and climate change in ways that contribute to community health, social cohesion, and socio-economic equity.