MPCA-Small Community Planning SWC Resilience

Full RFP Name: Small Communities Planning Grants for Stormwater, Wastewater, and Community Resilience
Minnesota’s climate is changing – it is happening here and now and will continue well into the future. We see the harmful effects in communities across our state today, from our own health and safety to overwhelmed infrastructure, damaged property, dying trees and culturally important native species, and the inability of population centers to cool off overnight. Climate trends identified through monitoring over decades of changes in temperature and precipitation, snow depth, and lake ice, storms and droughts, our growing season, and more show that Minnesota is becoming warmer and wetter, with more damaging rains, and cold weather warming. More extreme heatwaves and extended periods of drought alternating with intense precipitation are expected in the future.
During the 2023 Legislative Session, ongoing funding was appropriated in the Omnibus Environment, Natural Resources, Climate, and Energy bill H.F. 2310, Article 1, Sec. 2, Subdivision 2(k) to support communities in planning and implementing projects for climate resiliency and water infrastructure that will allow for adaptation for a changing climate.
This Request for Proposals provides an opportunity for small communities (population less that 10,000) to assess vulnerabilities and plan for the effects of Minnesota’s changing climate in three areas: how to increase resilience to stormwater and reduce localized flood risk, how to improve the resilience of wastewater systems, and how to reduce human health effects and adapt community services, ordinances, and public spaces to the changing climate.