U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is issuing this RFA to support the CBP Partnership’s continuing mission of evaluating the effectiveness of management actions taken to reduce nutrient and sediment pollutant loads and to improve Chesapeake Bay water quality through the seven watershed jurisdictions’ watershed implementation plans (WIPs) and through local TMDLs and water quality assessments.
Donor Name: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
State: Selected States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 04/07/2023
Size of the Grant: $250,000
Grant Duration: 5 years
Details:
This RFA is seeking insightful, expert, and cost-effective applications from eligible applicants to apply a state-of-the-science unstructured grid model to the tidal waters of the Chesapeake’s tributaries and embayment’s (hereafter called the Multiple Tributary Model or MTM). The management purpose of the MBM is to assess the Chesapeake tidal water quality standards including dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll a, suspended solids, water clarity, and SAV under current and future conditions of climate change to 2035 and beyond. The MTM scenarios, as directed by Chesapeake Bay decision-makers, will provide support for management strategies to achieve water quality standards in TMDLs and assessments in the tidal Bay (other than the 2010 Chesapeake TMDL).
The mission includes enhancing and maintaining the accountability of systems dependent on tracking, verifying, reporting, and quantifying the estimated pollutant load reduction potential of practices, treatments, and technologies implemented throughout the watershed and assessing their collective influence on Chesapeake Bay tidal water quality. The resultant data are used by the CBP Partnership to:
- Assess achievement of their two-year milestones;
- Assess progress towards implementing their WIPs;
- Determine management effectiveness of locally-implemented nutrient and sediment pollutant load reduction and prevention practices, treatments, and technologies;
- Report Bay and watershed restoration actions to the public;
- Project Chesapeake Bay water quality conditions based on implemented and planned pollutant load reduction actions;
- Support establishment of target pollutant loads to address 2035 climate change risks to the Chesapeake’s water quality and living resources;
- Support adaptive management by the CBP partnership; and
- Support Executive Council directives, e.g., those related to climate change.
Applications submitted under this RFA should be oriented towards demonstrating:
- Experience and knowledge in development, calibration, validation, and scientific and management applications of complex, linked environmental models, particularly the SCHISM Model and ICM water quality model;
- Experience and knowledge in working with multi-institutional and multi-agency teams on collaborative development, calibration, validation, and scientific and management application of complex linked environmental models;
- Experience and knowledge in model research and model development programs focused on the productive littoral areas of estuarine and coastal ecosystems, particularly for shallow water systems;
- Knowledge and ability in using the SCHISM-ICM code.
- Full, detailed, and accurate simulation of the effects of nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment, and climate change related factors in the assessment of the DO, chlorophyll a, clarity/SAV, and other water quality standards or assessments in the Chesapeake Bay.
- Ensuring complete web-accessibility of the resultant supporting data, model code, and documentation to the partnership-oriented, implementation-focused structure of the CBP Partnership through open source and public domain products.
- As appropriate and to the extent practicable, seeking partnership with Tribal communities.
The MBM of the entire tidal Chesapeake will be the regulatory model supporting the 2010 Chesapeake TMDL. The MTMs will fully collaborate and augment the MBM as well as perform the following key aspects and tasks to:
- Improve the simulation and understanding of shallow water processes,
- Improve CBP estuarine science and analysis by fully integrating the MTMs into the MBM development thereby increasing the number of CBP science teams looking into Chesapeake tidal water quality,
- Assist in improving all tidal Chesapeake water quality assessments by bringing tidal TMDLs and other water quality assessments in the Chesapeake up to date and linked with the latest Phase 7 next-generation watershed, airshed, and estuary models
- Collaborate with and support the MBM, the Chesapeake TMDL regulatory model of the entire tidal Chesapeake, and
- Provide MTM support for updating tidal TMDLs and other water quality assessments in the Chesapeake to future climate hydrologies and estimated tidal water quality under a 2035 hydrology, climate, and sea level rise.
Funding Information
The total estimated funding under this solicitation is approximately $750,000 for up to three cooperative agreements, with $250,000 total available per award. Funding will be awarded incrementally in the amount of $50,000 per year per award depending on funding availability, satisfactory performance, Agency priorities, and other applicable considerations.
Project Period
The expected project period for the cooperative agreement is five years, with funding provided on an annual basis. No commitment of funding can be made beyond the first year. The expected start date for the award resulting from this RFA is August 7, 2023.
Eligible Applicants
- Under Clean Water Act Section 117(d), 33 U.S.C. Section 1267(d), funds are available for technical and general assistance grants to nonprofit organizations, State, tribal (federally recognized) and local governments, colleges, universities, and interstate agencies.
- Nonprofit organizations, State, tribal (federally-recognized) and local governments, colleges, universities, and interstate agencies are eligible to submit applications in response to this RFA. For-profit organizations are not eligible to submit applications in response to this RFA.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
