DHS Announces Funding for Preparedness Grant Programs

The Department Homeland Security’s (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano has announced the final allocations for 12 preparedness grant programs totaling more than $2.1 billion in Federal grants to assist states, urban areas, tribal and territorial governments, non-profit agencies, and the private sector.  Preparedness Grant Program Awards for Fiscal Year 2011 include several programs of interest to state drinking water programs:

• Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) — more than $1.28 billion total:

• State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) — more than $526 million to support the implementation of state homeland security strategies to build and strengthen preparedness capabilities at all levels (25% must be dedicated to law enforcement terrorism prevention-oriented planning, organization, training, exercise and equipment activities).
• Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) — more than $662 million to enhance regional preparedness capabilities in 31 high-threat, high-density urban areas.
• Citizen Corps Program (CCP) — more than $9 million to engage citizens in community preparedness, planning, mitigation, response and recovery activities.

• Tribal Homeland Security Grant Program (THSGP) — $10 million for eligible tribes to implement preparedness initiatives to help strengthen the nation against risk associated with potential terrorist attacks and other hazards.

• Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program (RCPSP) — more than $14 million to enhance catastrophic incident preparedness in selected high-risk, high-consequence urban areas and their surrounding regions in order to support coordination of regional all-hazard planning for catastrophic events.

• Emergency Operations Center Grant Program (EOC) — more than $14 million to support the construction or renovation of Emergency Operations Centers to improve state, local or tribal emergency management and preparedness capabilities to ensure continuity of operations during disasters.

• Emergency Management Performance Grants (EMPG) — more than $329 million to assist state and local governments to enhance and sustain all-hazards emergency management capabilities.

Further information on the DHS preparedness grant programs is available at www.dhs.gov and www.fema.gov/grants.