Funding Resources for Watershed Protection and Restoration
EPA Funding Resources
CWSRF Best Practices Guide for Financing Nonpoint Source Solutions (pdf) This guide is designed to help the 51 state-level CWSRF programs apply best practices to address the challenge of nonpoint source (NPS) pollution. Some of the programs have achieved notable success using CWSRF funds to target NPS needs. These state programs have evolved to produce creative solutions to combat NPS problems and offer valuable lessons for other states to consider. EPA developed this guide to share the collective wisdom from those states. The guide will help state staff better align and integrate their state’s CWSRF and NPS management programs. The guide suggests strategies and key elements needed to expand the use of CWSRF resources to address priority needs as specified in state NPS management program plans, and it identifies potential obstacles and how to overcome them. The guide provides helpful case studies of successful and innovative partnerships underway across the country.
Understanding Managing and Applying for EPA Grants: Includes information on how to apply, grant resources, grant programs and more.
The Water Finance Clearing House: A searchable database of financial assistance sources (grants, loans, cost-sharing) available from federal agencies including those to fund a variety of watershed protection projects.
Grants.gov: This website provides organizations with the ability to search for competitive grants from all grant-making federal agencies, register to receive grant notices via e-mail, and download grant applications.
Water Infrastructure and Resiliency Finance Center: provides financial expertise to communities that are financing drinking water, waste water, and/or stormwater infrastructure projects.
Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF): The CWSRF program is a federal-state partnership that provides communities a permanent, independent source of low-cost financing for a wide range of water quality infrastructure projects.
- Water Quality Management Planning Grants: Information on Section 604(b) of the Clean Water Act, which provides approximately 1% of SRF allotments to support State water quality planning activities.
Environmental Education Grants Program: This program supports environmental education projects that increase the public awareness about environmental issues and increase people's ability to make informed decisions that impact environmental quality. EPA awards between $2 and $3 million annually. More than 75 percent of these grant recipients receive less than $15,000.
Reports and Publications
Handbook on Coordinating Funding for Water and Wastewater Infrastructure (2003) (PDF): Because there are numerous ways to coordinate funding for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, EPA surveyed six states – Arizona, California, Montana, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington – to identify the keys to the success of their coordinated funding approaches. This handbook presents the lessons learned by these six states so that other states may understand the benefits and challenges of coordinating funding efforts.
Clean Water Revolving Fund Activity Update: Ohio's Restoration Sponsor Program Integrates Point Source and Nonpoint Source Projects (PDF): This article provides a case study of how Ohio EPA has worked to fund both point and nonpoint source projects through a Water Resource Restoration Sponsor Program (WRRSP). The article reinforces the idea that wastewater treatment plant improvements and water resource restoration projects are complementary efforts.
Additional Funding Resources
- helping organizations focus on the most pressing Chesapeake Bay and watershed problems, and
- providing networking opportunities to foster collaboration on shared interests and activities.
Environmental Finance Center at University of North Carolina works to enhance the ability of governments and other organizations to provide environmental programs and services in fair, effective and financially sustainable ways. They developed a Rates Analysis Model an easy-to-use, simplified cash flow model. It allows utilities or local governments to input current water consumption rates, number of accounts, growth rate, average consumption, and expenses in order to compute net profit/losses for multiple years.