EPA Healthy Watersheds Consortium Grants

Federal-private grant program funding the protection of intact, healthy watersheds before they degrade. Awards typically $25,000-$200,000 for watershed assessment, planning, land protection, and community engagement in still-healthy systems.

The Healthy Watersheds Consortium Grant Program is an EPA-funded competitive grant program administered through a partnership of the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, the Geos Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund. Where most water quality funding flows toward fixing impaired waters, this program funds the much rarer work of protecting watersheds that are still healthy — before they degrade and before they end up on a 303(d) list.Eligible activities include healthy watershed assessment and protection planning, land protection through easement or fee acquisition in priority watersheds, riparian and aquatic habitat restoration that maintains existing function, monitoring and citizen science to detect early degradation, community engagement and outreach in still-healthy headwater communities, and policy work to strengthen protection of high-quality waters.Awards typically range from $25,000 to $200,000 for one- to three-year projects. The program is a particularly good fit for headwater watershed groups in the Laurel Highlands, the upper Youghiogheny, the Casselman, and other still-relatively-healthy SW PA streams where protection rather than restoration is the appropriate strategy. Annual cycle with a winter or early spring deadline.