Federal grant programs / Environmental Protection Agency

National Estuary Program (66.456)

Also known as NEP

• Awarded, FY 2021 to 2025$244 million
• Grant awards138
• Typical award$910,400
• Awarded in FY 2025$44.9 million
• Size rank560 of 1,823
• Type of assistanceProject grants

Key findings

• Annual funding rose from $27.4 million in fiscal 2021 to $44.9 million in fiscal 2025.
• It is the 560th largest of 1,823 federal grant programs by five-year awards.
• The 20 largest recipients received 78% of the money.
• Awards went to recipients in 19 states and territories.

What the program funds

The National Estuary Program (NEP) goal is to protect and restore the water quality and estuarine resources of estuaries and associated watersheds designated by the EPA Administrator as estuaries of national significance. The 28 estuaries of national significance, or NEPs, use an ecosystem-based management approach to help achieve their protection and restoration goals. For example, each NEP characterizes the priority problems in its estuary and surrounding watershed, develops a long-term plan known as a Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP) that identifies actions to address those problems, and identifies partners, including lead entities, who will implement those actions. Implementation of CCMPs can include the following actions: protecting and restoring habitat, including wetlands; supporting water quality protection and restoration, including Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) plan implementation; monitoring for, assessing the extent of toxics loadings and pathogen contamination, and taking steps to address excess loadings and contamination; implementing stormwater management, reducing non-point source pollution impacts, and promoting the adoption of green infrastructure approaches; preventing the spread of aquatic invasive species and/or managing their impacts; developing and implementing nutrient reduction strategies; conducting vulnerability assessments and developing and implementing adaptation strategies for recurring extreme weather, and using adaptation tools to promote coastal resilience. In addition to CCMP implementation, NEPs and other eligible recipients, address urgent and challenging issues that threaten the ecological and economic well-being of coastal areas. EPA's funding priority is to award assistance agreements that support the 28 National Estuary Programs' (NEPs) efforts to address their estuarine watersheds' priority problems identified in each of the 28 long-term CCMPs. EPA will provide focused support for NEPs to address priority problems identified by NEP management conferences and to document accomplishments and environmental results. NEP efforts address such problems as: (1) impacts on estuarine water quality and living resources of nutrients, toxics (chemical, heavy metals), pathogen contamination, and sediment attributable to excess loadings and non-point stormwater runoff; e.g., excess nutrient loadings can result in nutrient over-enrichment and hypoxic conditions in estuarine water bodies; (2) habitat loss/degradation; (3) risks to CCMP implementation due to recurring extreme weather impacts, and adaptation strategies to build regional, local, and tribal officials' capacity to address impacts from recurring extreme weather on NEP watersheds, and to promote community resilience. Activities that build capacity include conducting vulnerability assessments and developing and implementing adaptation strategies and programs; and 4) need for decision makers in estuarine communities to implement sustainable land use, green infrastructure, and low-impact development best practices.

From the federal Assistance Listing. Read the full listing on SAM.gov.

Open opportunities

No opportunity under this program is open or forecast on Grants.gov right now. Programs often post once a year, so the funding history below shows what to expect.

Rules from the program listing

Who can apply

Assistance agreements are issued only to those estuaries designated by the Administrator. The Administrator is authorized to make grants to State, interstate, and regional water pollution control agencies and entities; State coastal zone management agencies; interstate agencies; and other public and private nonprofit agencies, institutions, organizations, and individuals (Section 320(g)(l)). Profit making organizations are not eligible for grants. For certain competitive funding opportunities under this assistance listing, the Agency may limit eligibility to compete to a number or subset of eligible applicants consistent with the Agency's Assistance Agreement Competition Policy.

What the money can and cannot pay for

Clean Water Act Section 320 authorizes issuance of assistance agreements used to meet requirements to develop and implement CCMPs. Annual workplans, which address priority actions in the CCMPs, lay out projects to be undertaken during the fiscal year. They are developed and approved by each management conference. Twenty-eight estuaries have been designated as estuaries of national significance; those 28 are: Long Island Sound Study, Puget Sound Partnership, Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program, Narragansett Bay Estuary Program, New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program, Delaware Center for the Inland Bays, Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, Galveston Bay Estuary Program, Santa Monica Bay National Estuary Program, Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, San Francisco Estuary Partnership, Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, Massachusetts Bays National Estuary Program, Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program, Tampa Bay Estuary Program, Peconic Estuary Program, San Juan Bay Estuary Partnership, Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program, Tillamook Estuaries Partnership, the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership, Barnegat Bay Partnership, Maryland Coastal Bays Program, Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, Morro Bay National Estuary Program, and Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership.

Continue reading on SAM.gov

Matching requirements

This program has no statutory formula. Matching Requirements: Percent: 50 Public Law 106-457, which amended Section 320(g) of the Water Quality Act of 1987, limits the amount of grants to 75 percent of the aggregate CCMP development project costs for each estuary program and to 50 percent of the aggregate CCMP implementation project costs for each estuary program, and requires that the nonfederal share be provided from nonfederal sources. The nonfederal share can be contributed by any of the participants in the management conference. Contact the appropriate management conference program office or EPA Regional Office for more information. For the NEP Coastal Watersheds Grant, the applicant must provide a minimum non-federal cost share/match of 25 percent of the total federal funding provided. The IIJA provides authority for the Administrator to waive or reduce the non-federal cost share requirement for IIJA funds.MOE requirements are not applicable to this assistance listing.

Deadlines

Contact the headquarters or regional location, as appropriate for application deadlines Contact the headquarters (or regional office, as appropriate) for application deadlines. For competitive awards, deadlines will be specified in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).

Award range and average, in the agency's words

For FY 2024, each of the NEPs received base funding of $850,000 and the NEP Coastal Watersheds Grant total amount was $3,500,000. For FY 25, each of the NEPs are estimated to receive base funding of $700,000.

Examples of funded projects

Fiscal Year2025: Assistance agreements are awarded to states, interstate agencies, academic institutions and other nonprofit organizations to implement NEP CCMPs. Activities associated with CCMP implementation may include those that: (1) protect and restore water quality by conducting monitoring, assessing water quality conditions, implementing best management practices that help restore degraded waters to healthy conditions, and reducing loadings of pollutants like nutrients and toxics to estuarine water bodies; (2) protect and restore habitat and living resources by implementing local stormwater management programs, eradicating invasive species, removing dams that obstruct fish passage, and providing technical assistance on low-impact development practices that reduce sediment loadings to water bodies; (3) conduct vulnerability assessments and develop and implement adaptation strategies; (4) revise CCMPs to reflect new local priorities; (5) develop annual work plans and design and maintain systems to track and report on priority action implementation, deliverables, and environmental results; and (6) evaluate and report on CCMP implementation progress and environmental results. EPA has continued to fund through the NEP Coastal Watersheds Grant an intermediary organization to fund subawards that support projects that address urgent and challenging issues that threaten the ecological and economic well-being of coastal and estuarine areas.

Continue reading on SAM.gov

Quoted from the program's federal Assistance Listing. The notice of funding opportunity is the official source for each competition's rules.

Who usually wins

State and local governments received 41% of the money, nonprofits 34% and colleges and universities 25%.

By state

18 states have a page for this program: those that received at least $1 million or 10 awards.

Award amounts are federal obligations reported to USAspending.gov for fiscal 2021 to 2025; see how our data works.