2022 SOUTH FLORIDA PROGRAM | EPA I R4 SFL 2022 01

Opportunity Information: Apply for EPA I R4 SFL 2022 01

The 2022 South Florida Program grant opportunity is a competitive funding announcement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) aimed at protecting and improving the health of south Florida waters. The program focuses on both immediate and emerging ecological pressures affecting a wide range of aquatic environments, including freshwater systems, estuaries, bays, and coral reef habitats. The underlying idea is that these waters are not only environmentally important, but also central to the region's economy and long-term resilience, because they support tourism, fisheries, recreation, coastal protection, and other community benefits that depend on functioning ecosystems.

A major emphasis of the opportunity is the practical value that healthy aquatic ecosystems provide to people and infrastructure. The EPA description highlights the services these systems deliver, such as providing food and habitat for wildlife, removing nutrients, filtering water, reducing storm impacts, storing carbon, and stabilizing shorelines. In other words, the program is designed to fund projects that help ecosystems keep doing the work that makes communities safer and more sustainable, particularly in a region where development, sea level rise, storms, pollution, and habitat loss can combine into complex and growing risks.

Geographically, the solicitation targets a specific south Florida footprint. It includes the full 16-county area served by the South Florida Water Management District, and it also explicitly references key water bodies and coastal systems such as the Florida Keys and Florida Reef Tract, the Caloosahatchee Estuary, the Indian River Lagoon, the St. Lucie Estuary, Florida Bay, and Biscayne Bay. Applicants are expected to propose work that is relevant to these waters and the ecological challenges they face, which can include issues like degraded water quality, harmful algal blooms, seagrass or mangrove loss, coral stress, altered freshwater flows, or other stressors affecting the region's aquatic habitats.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary EPA grant competition under CFDA 66.484, offered through a cooperative agreement funding instrument. Cooperative agreements generally indicate that EPA anticipates having an active role during the project period, such as providing technical input, coordination, or oversight in addition to funding, rather than acting purely as a pass-through funder. The funding opportunity is identified as EPA I R4 SFL 2022 01 and was posted on July 14, 2022, with an original application deadline of August 29, 2022.

In terms of scale, the opportunity lists an award ceiling of $750,000 and anticipates making about 20 awards. While the notice does not spell out project categories in the excerpt provided, the framing makes clear that proposals should be oriented toward tangible environmental outcomes for south Florida waters, addressing threats and pressures that are already present as well as those expected to intensify. Eligibility is listed broadly as "Others," with details referred to an additional eligibility section in the full announcement, suggesting that multiple organization types may be able to apply depending on the EPA's specific criteria.

Overall, the 2022 South Florida Program opportunity is designed to catalyze on-the-ground, regionally focused environmental work that sustains and restores critical aquatic ecosystems across south Florida, recognizing that these ecosystems function as both natural infrastructure and economic engines for the region.

• The Environmental Protection Agency in the environment sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "2022 SOUTH FLORIDA PROGRAM" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 66.484.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 14, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 29, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $750,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 20 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for EPA I R4 SFL 2022 01

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