USDA Rural Development · Water & Wastewater · Disaster Resilience
Emergency Community Water Assistance Grants (ECWAG)
Funds rural communities responding to declines in water quantity or quality from emergency events. Eligible projects include water source replacement, treatment-system replacement, and emergency repairs.
Program facts
- Typical award
- $50K – $1M
- Non-federal match
- Varies by NOFO
- Audience
- Cities, towns, counties, and tribal governments
- Application window
- Continuous intake.
- Typical prep time
- 4–10 weeks
- Statutory authority
- Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act §306A
Catalog entry last verified 2026-05-24 · Verify on the agency page →
Eligibility at a glance
- Cities are eligible applicants.
- Rural eligibility: population under 50,000 (USDA threshold).
- Population ceiling: no more than 10,000.
Rural communities under 10,000 with documented water emergency. Amounts and timing approximate; verify directly with administering agency.
How Strategic Pursuit scores this program
When you run a city dossier, Strategic Pursuit cross-checks the city's demographics, federal award history, disaster history, and CEJST burden categories against this program's eligibility and strategic-fit signals. You see an explicit eligibility / strategic / competitive grade — backed by source citations — instead of a generic "match" badge.
Planning purposes only. Award ranges, match percentages, and application windows on this page summarize the latest publicly available agency guidance and are approximate. Always verify the binding NOFO on the administering agency's page before applying.