The U.S. Healthy Watersheds Consortium Grant Program has posted its 2018 Request for Proposals.  Up to $3 million is available this year and applications are due by February 1, 2018.

The goal of the grant program is to accelerate strategic protection of healthy, freshwater ecosystems and their watersheds by:

-- Developing funding mechanisms, plans, or other strategies to implement large-scale watershed protection, source water protection, green infrastructure, or related landscape conservation objectives;

-- Building the sustainable organizational infrastructure, social support, and long-term funding commitments necessary to implement large-scale protection of healthy watersheds; and

-- Supporting innovative or catalytic projects that may accelerate funding for or implementation of watershed protection efforts, or broadly advance this field of practice.

Not-for-profit organizations, for-profit companies, tribes, intertribal consortia, interstates, state, and local government agencies including water utilities and wastewater facilities, and colleges and universities are eligible for funding. Public/private partnerships are particularly desirable.

Webinars

The program will hold two webinars to help applicants prepare their responses to the RFP--

-- September 26 from 2:00– 3:00 p.m. The HWC Grant Program will host a webinar entitled, “Peaks to People Water Fund: Lessons learned in the proof of concept phase and demonstration of the Watershed Investment Tool,” to share information about how these 2016 grant recipients helped to accelerate forest restoration in Colorado to reduce the threat of severe wildfire in watersheds. Register Here.

-- October 11 from 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. The HWC Grant Program will host an informational webinar to provide an overview of priorities for the 2018 program and allow participants to ask questions.  Registration is limited and a recording will be posted on the website within one day for anyone who misses it. Register Here.

The Healthy Watersheds Consortium Grant Program is a partnership that includes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Water’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities.

For all the details, visit the U.S. Healthy Watersheds Consortium Grant Program webpage.

[Posted: Sept. 8, 2017]

9/11/2017