The Anne Arundel County Watershed Restoration Grant Program is a partnership between the Trust, the Anne Arundel County Bureau of Watershed Protection and Restoration, and the City of Annapolis.  This award program aims to improve water quality in the County’s local streams and waterways, as called for in the County’s Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit and County and City of Annapolis’ Stormwater Management Inventory and Watershed Improvement Plan, which require reductions in storm flow volume and pollutants entering the County’s waterways.

What is NEW this year?  This grant program now accepts applications for restoration projects located in the City of Annapolis and includes a new Category for the County’s potential acquisition of non-tidal flood prone and/or natural resource rich properties! See RFP for more information.

What this funds:

The Anne Arundel County Watershed Restoration Grant Program will fund projects to reduce pollutants through the implementation of watershed restoration practices. Projects must accomplish on-the-ground restoration that treats rainwater runoff from impervious surfaces at a cost-effective price or demonstrates the accomplishment of another metric that will help the County and City meet local water quality and runoff reduction improvement goals. Applications under this award program that demonstrate sound design and cost efficiency in meeting this goal will be most competitive. To demonstrate this, applicants will be required to provide sound technical designs and project budgets as outlined in this application package.

In this grant program, we have traditionally included two categories of project types: Category 1 projects are small-scale restoration projects and Category 2 projects are large-scale restoration projects.  In FY21, we are adding an evaluation track for the County’s potential acquisition of non-tidal flood prone and/or natural resource rich properties whose preservation can assist the County in meeting its environmental regulatory goals and help mitigate flood risk (Category 3 projects).

The Trust is committed to the advancement of diversity and inclusion in its award-making and environmental work. As a result, the Trust strongly encourages applications directly from underrepresented groups, and for projects that increase awareness and participation of communities that are traditionally underrepresented, such as communities of color. For a full description of the Trust’s efforts to engage under-engaged groups, see our strategic plan at www.cbtrust.org/strategic-plan and https://cbtrust.org/diversity-inclusion/.

*All applicants must contact the Trust to arrange a site visit between the Trust and the funding partner staff before applying for this opportunity. Site visits must be completed by February 12, 2021.

Who can apply: Non-profit organizations, community associations, faith-based organizations, and more.

How much can be awarded: $15,000 to $300,000. Larger awards are possible with prior approval from the Trust.

Implementation project location: Anne Arundel County, Maryland INCLUDING the City of Annapolis. See the RFP for guidelines for selecting an appropriate project site.

Is match required? Match is encouraged but is not required. Preference will be given to projects with cash match and/or in-kind services.

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU): The MOU is an agreement signed between the Grantee and the County and is customized for each project. Click here for a sample MOU, although the terms of this sample MOU could change based upon the project type.

Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE)’s “ Accounting for Stormwater Wasteload Allocations and Impervious Acres Treated – Guidance for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Stormwater Permits”(June 2020): This document should be used for reference to provide calculations of nutrient and sediment loads reduced by your project.