Brownfields Assessment Grants

Assessment Grants provide funding for a grant recipient to inventory, characterize, assess, conduct a range of planning activities, develop site-specific cleanup plans, and conduct community engagement related to brownfield sites.

Community-wide Assessment Grants

A Community-wide Assessment Grant is appropriate for communities that are beginning to address their brownfield challenges, as well as for communities that have ongoing efforts to bring sites into productive reuse.
An applicant may request up to $500,000 to assess sites contaminated by hazardous substances, pollutants, contaminants (including hazardous substances co-mingled with petroleum), and/or petroleum.
The performance period for these grants is up to four years.
Current EPA Brownfields Assessment Grant recipients and Multipurpose Grant recipients must demonstrate that payment has been received from EPA (also known as ‘drawn down’), and drawn down funds have been disbursed, for at least 70.00% of each Assessment and Multipurpose cooperative agreement they have with EPA by October 1, 2023, in order to apply for an FY24 Community-wide Assessment Grant.

Assessment Coalition Grants

Assessment Coalitions are designed for one “lead” eligible entity to partner with two to four eligible entities that do not have the capacity to apply for and manage their own EPA cooperative agreement and otherwise would not have access to Brownfields Grant resources. Additionally, EPA strongly encourages coalitions to include eligible community-based nonprofit organizations as non-lead members to help promote strong local engagement and to ensure the community’s concerns and vision for revitalization are incorporated into the project.
The lead entity of the coalition must be a state, county government, Indian Tribe other than in Alaska, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation, an Alaska Native Village Corporation, the Metlakatla Indian community, regional council established under a governmental authority (e.g., regional planning commissions), or a group of general purpose units of local government established under Federal, state or local law (e.g., councils of governments) to function as a single legal entity with authority to enter into binding agreements with the Federal Government. A state entity may only be the lead member of the coalition.
Entities that have an open (i.e., the grant period of performance has not ended) Brownfields Multipurpose, Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, or Cleanup (MARC) Grant and entities that were awarded a MARC Grant that closed in 2016 or later, are not eligible to be a non-lead coalition member.
The members of the coalition may not be an agency or instrumentality of themselves (for example, a county and the redevelopment authority of the same county); except for coalitions in which the state is the lead and one of the members is a regional council or regional commission that is created by a state legislature through a charter or another official action.
An applicant may request up to $1,500,000 to assess sites contaminated by hazardous substances, pollutants, contaminants (including hazardous substances co-mingled with petroleum), and/or petroleum.
The performance period for these grants is up to four years.
Current EPA Brownfields Assessment Grant and Multipurpose Grant recipients must demonstrate that payment has been received from EPA (also known as ‘drawn down’), and drawn down funds have been disbursed, for at least 70.00% of each Assessment and Multipurpose cooperative agreement they have with EPA by October 1, 2023, in order to apply for an FY24 Assessment Coalition Grant.

Community-wide Assessment Grants for States and Tribes

This funding is only available to states, Tribes, and eligible native corporations in Alaska to address brownfield sites throughout their entire jurisdiction.
An applicant may request up to $2,000,000 to assess sites contaminated by hazardous substances, pollutants, contaminants (including hazardous substances co-mingled with petroleum), and/or petroleum.
The performance period for these grants is up to five years.
Current EPA Brownfields CWAGST Grant recipients must demonstrate that payment has been received from EPA (also known as ‘drawn down’), and drawn down funds have been disbursed, for at least 70.00% of the CWAGST cooperative agreement they have with EPA by October 1, 2023, in order to apply for an FY24 CWAGST Grant.

Participant Support Costs

Participant Support Costs are available under Assessment Grants.
EPA recognizes that effective community engagement is a vital process in sustainable community revitalization to help alleviate concerns for citizens and give them a voice in their community's future. A community liaison can serve as a key resource to help ensure the citizens' goals and interests are reflected in the planned reuse of individual brownfield sites and well as the revitalization of the areas in which they live, work, play, learn, and pray.
Recipients may use a portion of the Assessment Grant for eligible participant support costs associated with one community liaison per target area who is not an employee of the recipient. This may include reasonable stipends to compensate an individual community member(s) time and travel costs for participating in project-related meetings (e.g., meetings with the community, meetings held by a brownfields advisory board, etc.) and time associated with other specific tasks that are directly tied to related community engagement efforts. Note that stipends may only be paid for actual time spent working on tasks associated with the project and must not duplicate support provided through other Federal, state, Tribal, or local programs.

Additional information on participant support costs is available in EPA’s Guidance on Participant Support Costs.

Brownfields Assessment Grants

Community-wide Assessment Grants

Assessment Coalition Grants

Community-wide Assessment Grants for States and Tribes

Participant Support Costs

Grant Application Resources

Assessment Grant Recipient Resources

General Resources

Brownfields