Environmental Justice Small Grants Program
Grant: Environmental Justice Small Grants Program (EJSG)
Agency: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Division: Office of Environmental Justice
Deadline: The deadline was January 7, 2013.
Description: The EJSG Program is a multi-statute program designed to help communities understand and address their exposure to multiple environmental harms and risks. EPA will award grants that supports activities designed to educate, empower and enable communities to understand the environmental and public health issues, and to identify ways to address these issues at the local level.
The long-term goals of the EJSG Program are to help build the capacity of the communities with environmental justice concerns and create self-sustaining, community-based partnerships that will continue to improve local environments in the future. Each project must include activities that are authorized by at least one of the following Federal environmental statutes:
- Clean Water Act, Section 104(b)(3): conduct and promote the coordination of research, investigations, experiments, training, demonstration projects, surveys and studies relating to the causes, effects, extent, prevention, reduction and elimination of water pollution.
- Safe Drinking Water Act, Section 1442(c)(3): develop and expand the capability to carry out a program (that may combine training, education and employment) for occupations relating to the public health aspects of providing safe drinking water.
- Solid Waste Disposal Act, Section 8001(a): conduct and promote the coordination of research, investigations, experiments, training, demonstration projects, surveys, public education programs and studies relating to solid waste (e.g., health and welfare effects of exposure to materials present in solid waste, and methods to eliminate such effects).
- Clean Air Act, Section 103(b)(3): conduct research, investigations, experiments, demonstration projects, surveys and studies related to the causes, effects (including health and welfare effects), extent, prevention and control of air pollution.
- Toxic Substances Control Act, Section 10(a): conduct research, development, monitoring, public education, training, demonstration projects and studies on toxic substances.
- Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, Section 20(a): conduct research, development, monitoring, public education, training, demonstration projects and studies on pesticides.
- Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, Section 203: conduct research, investigations, experiments, training, demonstration projects, surveys, and studies relating to the minimizing or ending of ocean dumping of hazardous materials and the development of alternatives to ocean dumping.
Fit for Public Broadcasting: Station projects with an educational outreach component should apply, as there is a strong interest in supporting various local public health training/education initiatives. Also, the EJSG program supports the development of collaborative partnerships dedicated to identifying and understanding the multiple local environmental and public health issues in communities, educating communities about the issues and setting priorities to address the issues. EPA encourages establishing and building collaborative partnerships with other stakeholders who share a desire to address the local environmental and public health issues affecting their community.
Eligibility: An eligible applicant must be an incorporated nonprofit community-based organization, a federally recognized tribal government or a tribal organization and it must be located within the same state, territory, commonwealth or tribe in which the proposed project will be located. Additionally, an eligible applicant must be able to demonstrate that it has worked directly with the affected community.
How to apply: All required forms and optional templates are available online. Applicants may submit applications via U.S. Postal or courier service, or online via Grants.gov. Online submission requires registration, a process that usually takes three to five business days but can take as long as four weeks. Be sure to visit Grants.gov and begin registering well in advance of the deadline.
Anticipated funding: Up to $1,500,000 is estimated to be available for projects related to one of the first seven statutes, and the EPA intends to award one to five of these grants per EPA region. See section VII of the program notice for a full listing of the different EPA regions. Each grant will be up to $30,000, and will last for one year. In the 2012 competition, 200 applications were received, and 50 projects were funded.
Resources:
Program notice
Program website
The EPA plans to host four conference calls where applicants are free to ask questions about the EJSG program. Detailed information including dates and times can be found in the Pre-Application Assistance section of the program notice (Section IV (G)).
