EPA Announces $30M for Underserved Communities in Great Lakes Region

ByNews Editor
Lake Michigan shoreline with cliffs in background

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the availability of $30 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for restoration projects that advance environmental justice in underserved and overburdened communities across the Great Lakes. A webinar about the program will stream May 23. 

Under the newly created Great Lakes Environmental Justice Grant Program, the agency will select “principal recipients” that will receive funding from EPA to develop, implement, and oversee grant issuance and management programs focused on environmental restoration and protection projects for which Great Lakes underserved communities seek funding.

Qualifying non-profit organizations, institutions of higher learning (i.e., colleges and universities, including minority-serving institutions), state agencies, interstate agencies, federally recognized Indian Tribes and tribal organizations, and local governments are eligible to apply as principal recipients.

EPA will consider applications from potential principal recipients interested in setting up Great Lakes Environmental Justice Grant Programs to fund environmental restoration and protection work on a Basin-wide basis or on a smaller, more localized basis. Projects funded through this program must improve the environmental health of the Great Lakes or Great Lakes watersheds through a variety of means, including:

  • restoring, enhancing, or protecting habitat;
  • reducing non-point source runoff through, e.g., green infrastructure, riparian restoration, shoreline stabilization, or other stormwater/nutrient reduction practices that will improve water quality;
  • connecting aquatic resources, e.g., dam removals, culvert replacements, etc.;
  • controlling or preventing invasive species; and
  • providing hands-on, place-based environmental educational opportunities in the Great Lakes Basin.

EPA intends to award the principal recipient(s) up to $20 million in funding to create a broad, basin-wide Great Lakes Environmental Justice Grant Program and up to $10 million in funding to create the more localized Great Lakes Environmental Justice Grant Programs.

Applications are being accepted through August 11, 2023. Learn more about the Great Lakes Environmental Justice Grant Program and the request for applications.

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