FY 2025 Region 4 Wetlands Program

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is soliciting applications for the FY 2025 Region 4 Wetlands Program Development Grants (WPDG), a cooperative agreement funding opportunity designed to assist state, Tribal, territory, and local government agencies in developing or refining comprehensive wetland protection, management, and restoration programs. Applicants must be located within EPA Region 4 (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee) and demonstrate a minimum 25 percent cost share of total project costs. Applications must develop or refine government wetland programs and cannot be implementation projects. Proposals will be evaluated on nine criteria totaling 100 points: project need and environmental benefit (20 points), project tasks (20 points), milestone schedule and timely expenditure (11 points), budget (10 points), transfer of results (7 points), environmental results and tracking (10 points), programmatic capability (6 points), partnerships (10 points), and past performance (6 points). The deadline for submitting questions is April 1, 2026, and applications must be submitted through Grants.gov by April 6, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. ET, with anticipated award notification in September 2026.

The EPA anticipates awarding 8–10 grants totaling $3,946,000, with individual grants ranging from $200,000 to $600,000 over a one to four-year project period. Approximately $2,446,000 will support Track One for Wetland Program Plans serving state, Tribal, and territory governments, while approximately $1,500,000 will support Track Two for non-WPP activities serving local governments, interstate agencies, intertribal consortia, and colleges/universities that are state agencies. All work must be performed within EPA Region 4, and a pre-budget webinar is scheduled for March 17, 2026, to assist potential applicants.