The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) was amended by the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act in 2002 to include Section 104(k), which provides federal financial assistance authorities for brownfields revitalization, including grants for assessment, cleanup, and revolving loan funds. The Brownfields Utilization, Investment, and Local Development (BUILD) Act (Public Law 115-141) enacted in 2018 reauthorized EPA’s Brownfields Program and made additional amendments to CERCLA that affect EPA’s brownfield grant authorities, and ownership and liability provisions. EPA’s Brownfields Program provides funds to empower states, tribal nations, communities, and nonprofit organizations to prevent, inventory, assess, clean up, and reuse brownfield sites. This guidance provides information on applying for Multipurpose Grants.

A Multipurpose Grant is appropriate for communities that have identified, through community engagement efforts, a discrete area (such as a neighborhood, a number of neighboring towns, a district, a corridor, a shared planning area, or a census tract) with one or more brownfield sites.

Multipurpose Grants provide funding to carry out a range of eligible assessment and cleanup activities, including planning and additional community engagement activities. Applicants can apply for funding up to $1,000,000 per grant under this solicitation. Multipurpose Grant applicants should have the capacity to conduct a range of eligible activities, for example:

• Developing inventories of brownfield sites;
• Prioritizing sites;
• Conducting community involvement activities;
• Conducting environmental site assessments;
• Developing cleanup plans and reuse plans related to brownfield sites;
• Conducting cleanup activities on brownfield sites owned by the applicant; and
• Developing an overall plan for revitalization.

Multipurpose Grant funding must be used to conduct both assessment and cleanup activities.

Multipurpose Grant recipients will be required to, at a minimum, conduct one Phase II environmental site assessment and remediate one site. Additionally, Multipurpose Grant funding must be used to develop an overall plan for revitalization of the target area (which must include a feasible reuse strategy of at least one priority site) if a plan does not already exist. Note, projects that allocate at least 70% of the funds for tasks directly related to site-specific work, including site assessments, remediation, and associated tasks (with at least 25% of the total award amount designated for tasks directly associated with site remediation) will be reviewed more favorably.

An applicant must be the sole owner of at least one brownfield site within their target area by November 13, 2023, where cleanup activities may be conducted.