EPA Brownfield Grants – Good News, Better News. Bottom Line – START NOW.

The US Environmental Protection Agency plans to release “Requests for APPLICATIONS” (RFA) for brownfield assessment, cleanup and revolving loan fund grants in a few weeks. The intent is to have the grant application season completed before the National Brownfields Conference in Los Angeles beginning December 10.

One KEY and IMPORTANT difference in this year’s grants is that additional documents will be required to submit an application. For most communities, board or council approval is necessary to authorize completion of these documents, because these forms imply that local resources, such as staff time, will be dedicated in the event a grant is awarded.

The good news is that these grant application forms are available now, and communities can put these items on their respective governing board agendas even before beginning their official application. In addition to the “starting early tips” (which will change when the RFA is released), visit your regional brownfield website (this one from Region 1) to determine the prerequisites for your community to submit these forms. This can take up to two weeks just to fill in, in addition to any time to “agendize” an item. Use last year’s application resources as a guide to the grant criteria (note that these will change), and visit TABez to view samples of previously successful applications.

The better news is that communities can start thinking earlier about their grant application scopes of work, and building partnerships and leveraging. This is where CCLR can help best. If you have questions about the grant application process, reach out to CCLR’s Director of Programs, Ignacio Dayrit at [email protected].

Be now, or be ciao.