The US Environmental Protection Agency Office of Environmental Justice has recently announced a grant opportunity. The Environmental Justice Small Grants Program has $1 million in funding to support grants of $25,000 each.

The awards will go to programs that support activities designed to educate, empower, and enable communities to understand environmental and public health issues and to identify ways to address these issues at the local level. The ultimate goal of the Environmental Justice Small Grant program is to create awareness about environmental justice concerns and partnerships within communities that will improve local environments in the future.

The focus of the EJSG is to continue aid to communities that support the EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s top priorities:

• Improving air quality
• Managing chemical risks
• Cleaning up hazardous-waste disposal sites
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
• Protecting America’s water

Eligible applicants must be:

• Incorporated non-profit organizations (such as: environmental justice networks, faith based organizations and those affiliated with religious institutions)
• Federally recognized tribal governments
• Tribal organizations

The proposals are due on 29 February, 2012.

Please visit the Environmental Justice Small Grants Program Page (CLICK HERE) for more information about the Request for Proposal and past grant awards.

Meghan Karlik
Project Manager
IMRivers
mkarlik@vertices.com

Urban Waters Small Grants Proposal due January 23, 2012

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set aside between $1.8 to $3.8 million to fund projects throughout the United States that are work to restore urban waters by “improving water quality and supporting community revitalization” as part of the EPA’s Urban Waters program.

As stated by the grant proposal guidelines, the goal of the Urban Waters Small Grants program is to “fund research, studies, training, and demonstration projects that will advance the restoration of urban waters by improving water quality through activities that also support community revitalization and other local priorities such as public health, social and economic opportunities, general livability and environmental justice for residents.” Projects eligible for funding include:

• Education and training for water quality improvement or green infrastructure jobs
• Public education about ways to reduce water pollution
• Local water quality monitoring programs
• Engaging diverse stakeholders to develop local watershed plans
• Innovative projects that promote local water quality and community revitalization goals

Information about Urban Waters Small Grants including the Request for Proposal (RFP) and registration links for the webinars is available at http://www.epa.gov/urbanwaters/funding, and the EPA expects to award the grants in Summer 2012.

For more information on this project and for help with developing grant proposals, contact gis@vertices.com.

Nicola Mammes, VERTICES
Research Assistant
Center for Community Mapping
nicola.mammes@vertices.com