What types of projects qualify for funding and what types do not?
Under the Clean Water Act, EPA can only award grants to “conduct and promote the coordination and acceleration of, research, investigations, experiments, training, demonstrations, surveys, and studies relating to the causes, effects, extent, prevention, reduction, and elimination of [water] pollution.” While, on the surface, this authority seems to be straightforward, in reality, interpreting this language and relating it to watershed protection and restoration activities is much more difficult. Because our authority to award grants is limited to activities that basically advance the state of knowledge, gather information, or transfer information, EPA can not fund “implementation” projects per se. A project that entails the performance of routine, traditional, or established practices (i.e., is tried and true), or a project that is simply intended to carry out a task rather than transfer knowledge does not qualify. Established practices, however, are not inherently unfundable and can q
