The race is on to win a federal grant that comes with a Superfund cleanup of the Gowanus Canal.

The environmental watchdog Riverkeeper is a leading contender for an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) of $50,000. The EPA awards TAGs to nonprofits who then use the grant to hire technical experts to explain the complicated Superfund cleanup process to community groups as it unfolds.

So far Riverkeeper and the group Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus (F.R.O.G.G) have filed letters of intent to apply for the grant, according to Natalie Loney, the EPA's community involvement coordinator for the Gowanus Canal project.

Once the EPA publishes a formal announcement advertising the TAG, other organizations will have 30 days to submit their requests. After that, the EPA will ask interested parties to complete a more in-depth application before selecting a winner. The federal agency could ask competing applicants to combine efforts under a single proposal, but does not require them to do so.

“Riverkeeper has been a strong supporter of moving forward with the [Superfund] designation,” said Josh Verleun, the organization's attorney and chief investigator. Prior to the EPA's proposal to list the canal last spring, Riverkeeper played an active role along the canal, Verleun said, patrolling the waterway by boat in search of current polluters and signs of historical contamination. The boat patrol program slowed last year but is set to resume in the coming months.

Riverkeeper has also been involved with the acronym-friendly EPA's Hudson River Superfund cleanup, as a member of that project's Community Advisory Group (CAG). Usually TAG recipients are members of CAGs, themselves comprised of elected officials, community groups and residents who act as a community liaison during Superfund cleanups.

The EPA is also forming a CAG for the Gowanus Canal.

Though there is currently no technical assistance grant for the Hudson River cleanup Verleun said Riverkeeper's involvement there and on a score of other environmental projects makes the organization a perfect candidate for the Gowanus TAG.

“We do have experience working [on] long-term cleanup projects,” he said. “We feel like we're in a good position to manage the grant.”

The TAG winner will have to find someone who can help community residents understand the reams of scientific data that will emerge from the EPA's Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study (RI/FS) of pollution sources in and along the canal. Once the RI/FS is completed at the end of 2011, the EPA will hold a public comment period to solicit input on a range of possible cleanup solutions.

That will likely be the public's last opportunity to have a say in the project before remediation work begins. For that reason, said Verleun, the TAG winner's role as an independent watchdog could have a significant impact on the planning process.

“Even if the EPA is in the driver's seat that doesn't mean the community can't have a meaningful role,” he said.