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EPA Seeks Projects for Environmental Justice Small Grants Program by April 4th Deadline

Release Date: 03/04/2005
Contact Information:

Contact: Davina Wysin, EPA New England Office, (617) 918-1020

For Immediate Release: March 4, 2005; Release # dw050301

BOSTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is seeking applications for the Environmental Justice (EJ) Small Grants program, and is holding a series of conference calls for potential applicants to discuss eligibility criteria in March. EPA New England expect to award three $25,000 grants through the program.

Under this new funding opportunity, projects are sought from community-based organizations that address a community's exposure to multiple environmental harms and risks. This program will fund two types of projects: (1) projects that address pollution in more than one environmental medium (i.e., land, air and water), called multi-media projects; and (2) research projects specific to hazardous substances defined under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act or "Superfund," called CERCLA research projects.

Note that only community-based organizations that are non-governmental, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organizations located in the affected community are eligible for the EJ Small Grants program. The focus of this year's program, however, is on collaborative partnerships, and applicants must demonstrate how they plan to collaborate with other entities (e.g., businesses, academic institutions, environmental organizations and federal, state and local governments, among others) to complete their proposed projects.

A total of $750,000 is available to support EJ Small Grant projects nationally, $250,000 of which is available for CERCLA research projects only. Funding is being divided equally among the 10 federal regions, so EPA New England expects to award three $25,000 grants, including one CERCLA research project. Note that funding levels for this fiscal year do not permit the Office of Environmental Justice to fund both the EJ Small Grants program and the Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement program. Therefore, EPA chose to fund the EJ Small Grants program in order to provide funding to more community-based organizations across the country.

The deadline to submit completed application packages for the 2005 EJ Small Grants program is midnight on Monday, April 4th, 2005.

UPCOMING CONFERENCE CALLS
EPA's New England office is sponsoring three conference calls on the following dates and times in March to go over eligibility criteria for the EJ Small Grants program:
Tuesday, March 8th at 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 10th, at 10:00 a.m.
Wednesday, March 23th, at 1:00 p.m
To sign up for any of the calls listed above, contact Davina Wysin at Wysin.Davina@epa.gov or 617-918-1020. Please note that space is limited for each call, so register early.

MORE INFORMATION
For detailed information about the EJ Small Grants program, including a copy of the current application and profiles of past projects, please visit the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice website at:https://www.epa.gov/oeca/ej/grants/ej_smgrants.html

A Spanish version of the RFA will be made available on the website shortly.

Related Information:
Environmental Justice Program
Environmental Justice Small Grants Program