This agreement provides funding to colorado department of public health and the environment (cdphe) to assist an underserved community to meet and comply with safe drinking water act (sdwa) drinking…

EPA Region 8 awarded the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment $477,000 on October 1, 2026, under the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Small and Underserved Communities Emerging Contaminants Grant Program (CFDA 66.442), a formula grant to assist small and disadvantaged communities in complying with Safe Drinking Water Act requirements.

CDPHE will deploy the funding across three primary activities. First, the agency will issue mini-grants through a competitive application process to Colorado public water systems, with awards evaluated based on population, project scope, drinking water quality, regulatory compliance, and disadvantaged community status; these grants support infrastructure improvements in underserved systems. Second, CDPHE will solicit training contracts from technical assistance providers to build technical, managerial, and financial capacity within small and disadvantaged communities to ensure sustainable operations and long-term compliance. Third, CDPHE will expand its capacity development program by adding a full-time drinking water technical, managerial, and financial coach to its Local Assistance Unit.

The agency will establish formal selection processes for both technical assistance contracts and mini-grants, ensuring recipients meet disadvantaged-community and underserved-system criteria. CDPHE will monitor all contract and grant recipients through quarterly reports documenting deliverables, progress, issues, remediation approaches, and outcomes against progress metrics.

Performance period runs through September 30, 2031, with work performed in Colorado. Sub-awards will flow to technical assistance providers and to water systems and communities for infrastructure and operational improvements.

This agreement provides funding to colorado department of public health and the environment (cdphe) to assist an underserved community to meet and comply with safe drinking water act (sdwa) drinking water regulations. First, in order to address necessary infrastructure improvements, cdphe intends to award mini grants through an application process. Evaluation of grant applicants will be based on population, project scope, drinking water quality, regulatory compliance, and sudc status. Applications for the grant program will be available externally to all colorado public water systems (PWS) and department personnel will refer projects to this program. Second, cdphe will solicit training contracts from technical assistance (TA) providers to help sudcs build technical, managerial, and financial (TMF) skills necessary to create sustainable operations and maintain long-term compliance with the safe drinking water act. Third, program funding will be used to support cdphe's capacity development TMF coaching program by adding a full time drinking water TMF coach to the local assistance unit.activities:cdphe will utilize existing processes and will also establish a TMF assistance selection process and mini grant selection process to ensure the systems meet the above sudc and disproportionately impacted communities criteria. Additionally, cdphe will utilize its contract monitoring program requirements for contract and grant recipients. The program will require quarterly reports from technical assistance contractors and grantees documenting deliverables met, progress made, any issues encountered, avenues being taken to overcome issues, outcomes, and progress metrics that have been met.subrecipient:subawards will be awarded to a TA provider to support small and disadvantaged communities' infrastructure, administrative, and managerial improvements. Subawards will also go to communities and water systems to support infrastructure and operations improvements.outcomes:the anticipated deliverables include an increase in the number of public drinking water sudcs that are in compliance with the safe drinking water act and set them up for success to stay in compliance in the long term. As a result of this project sudc systems will 1) increase their TMF score based on a cdphe LAU coaching assessment which includes regulatory requirements, best management practices, sustainability goals, future planning goals, asset management, and emergency management planning; 2) meet short and long term health and compliance goals by spending mini grant funding on determined improvements; 3) improving one or several of the multiple barriers to prevent water borne disease outbreaks (monitoring, operator certification, maintenance, source water protection, treatment, storage, distribution materials and infrastructure, and backflow prevention and cross connection control). The intended beneficiaries include residents of small, underserved, and disadvantaged communities in colorado.