Michigan Department Of Environment, Great Lakes, And Energy

Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (MDEQ) is a U.S. state government agency that acts as a prime recipient of federal environmental grants and cooperative agreements, particularly from the Environmental Protection Agency and other natural-resource agencies, with no federal contract prime awardees in the source data.

MDEQ's federal footprint is almost entirely grant-based (691 of 695 awards are prime grants or cooperative agreements, with 4 sub-awards). The agency performs applied environmental science and regulatory work: water quality monitoring and permitting under the Clean Water Act, drinking water infrastructure financing through state revolving funds, hazardous waste and brownfields remediation and assessment, wetland protection and restoration, coastal zone management, dam safety, air quality monitoring, aquatic invasive species prevention and control, and Great Lakes ecosystem restoration. Recent work spans saxitoxin monitoring in Lake St. Clair cyanobacteria, feasibility studies for sediment remediation in the Detroit River Area of Concern, lead service line replacement programs, orphaned well plugging and remediation, green infrastructure stormwater projects in Detroit and Benton Harbor, and PFAS emerging-contaminant treatment and testing in small and disadvantaged communities.

The Environmental Protection Agency dominates the customer base: EPA (unspecified region) and EPA Region 5 together account for 492 of 576 identified awards (85% of the portfolio by count), though combined potential value across all awards is only $531 thousand—a structural artifact reflecting that grants in the source carry stated potential values as small fractions of actual obligated dollars. The portfolio's real scale is visible in the obligated-dollars figure: $4.93 billion obligated against $531 thousand stated potential, indicating substantial infrastructure and clean-up financing delivered through state revolving funds (Clean Water SRF, Drinking Water SRF) and cooperative agreements. NOAA (26 awards, $300 thousand potential value), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Region 3 (37 awards, $105 thousand), FEMA (24 awards), and the Department of Interior Interior Business Center (orphaned well and abandoned hardrock mining programs) round out the secondary customer set.

Award volume has remained steady at 40–50 per year from 2022 through 2025, with 9 awards recorded year-to-date 2026 (partial year). Seventy awards reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, indicating continuous recompete cycles across water quality, infrastructure finance, and ecosystem restoration programs. MDEQ operates as the state environmental agency and neither bids for federal contracts nor acts as a commercial subcontractor; its role is statutory implementation of delegated federal programs (NPDES permitting, DWSRF administration, water-quality monitoring) and recipient of competitive project grants for specific restoration, assessment, and community-focused initiatives funded under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, Inflation Reduction Act, and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.