Department of
Environmental Quality

EPA Brownfields Grant Competition

Each year, EPA provides direct funding for brownfields assessment, cleanup, revolving loans, and environmental job training.

• Assessment grants provide funding for a grant recipient to inventory, characterize, assess, and conduct planning and community involvement related to brownfield sites. Assessment grants are typically capped at $200,000 and require no matching funds.
• Cleanup grants provide funding for a grant recipient to clean up and revitalize eligible brownfield properties. Cleanup grants are capped at $200,000 and require a 20% match in funds or in-kind services.
• Environmental Workforce Development and Job Training Grants provide funding to eligible entities, including nonprofit organizations, to recruit, train, and place predominantly low-income and minority, unemployed and under-employed residents of solid and hazardous waste-impacted communities with the skills needed to secure full-time, sustainable employment in the environmental field and in the assessment and cleanup work taking place in their communities.

Brownfields program staff are available to assist with the preparation and review of grant proposals. 

For more information, visit EPA's Brownfields and Land Revitalization Grants & Funding website.

Previous recipients of brownfields grants in Idaho include the Moscow Brownfields Coalition (City of Moscow, Moscow Urban Renewal Agency, and Latah County), the City of Caldwell, Idaho Department of Parks & Recreation, Capital City Development Corporation, Reuse Idaho Brownfields Coalition, Salmon Urban Renewal Agency, and DEQ.

Low-Interest Loans

Funded by a $3 million grant from EPA, the Idaho Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund makes loans to help qualifying borrowers finance the cleanup of brownfields properties. Eligible borrowers can be any legal entity, municipality, or individual authorized to incur debt and enter into legally binding agreements. A borrower may be the current owner, or prospective owner, or a developer of a site.

Loans may be provided for sites that are publicly-owned such as by a municipality or a public development authority, owned by a nonprofit group such as a community development corporation, or privately-owned by current or prospective property owners, banks, or developers.

Funds may be used for prevention, abatement, or removal of hazardous substances or contaminants. Examples of the types of cleanup activities for which loans may be used include removal of structures, installation of fences or warning signs, drainage controls, capping of contaminated soils, excavation, consolidation or removal of contaminated soils, removal of drums, tanks, and other bulk containers with hazardous materials, containment, treatment or disposal or hazardous materials and petroleum contamination, site monitoring and assessment activities, DEQ Voluntary Cleanup Program fees, and environmental insurance.

Loans can range up to $1.2 million, not to exceed 80% of the total eligible project costs. The interest rate is determined on a project-by-project basis, but is no higher than prime plus two percent. Low or zero interest rates may be offered to encourage short-term repayments.

All potential cleanups considered for loan funds are required to participate in DEQ's Voluntary Cleanup Program.

The loan fund is managed by the Reuse Idaho Brownfields Coalition, consisting of Idaho’s six economic development district organizations and DEQ. The fund is administered by Economic Development District Region III, which is one of the six economic development district organizations.

For more information, visit the Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund website.