This RFA is seeking insightful, expert, and cost-effective applications from eligible applicants to provide technical analysis and programmatic evaluation support of non-federal agencies and organizations that are members of the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) partnership.
Donor Name: Environmental Protection Agency
State: Selected States
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/23/2023
Size of the Grant: $1,008,000
Grant Duration: 6 years
Details:
While the CBP partnership is comprised of federal and nonfederal agencies and organizations, the activities funded under this RFA shall only support the non-federal partners. The recipient of the cooperative agreement awarded under this RFA may work directly with federal agencies, but the nature of that work will result only in benefits to the non-federal agencies, organizations, partners, and the general public. The non-federal CBP partners will provide programmatic direction to the cooperative agreement recipient through the CBP partnership’s Water Quality Goal Implementaiton Team (GIT) and its workgroups, the CBP partnership’s Habitat GIT and its workgroups, the CBP partnership’s Fisheries GIT and its workgroups, the CBP partnership’s Scientific, Technical, Assessment and Reporting (STAR) Team and its workgroups, other CBP partnership’s GITs, and the CBP partnership’s Management Board.
The selected organization will support the CBP mission of expanding and accelerating the implementation of nutrient and sediment load reduction practices and technologies throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed through collection and evaluation of tidal and watershed water quality and living resources monitoring data. This mission also includes:
- Managing the CBP partnership’s jurisdiction-based tidal and watershed water quality and living resources monitoring data network, working directly with federal, state, regional, and local governmental and non-governmental data providers;
- Enhancing multiple-partner, consensus-based environmental decision-making throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed via the analysis of water quality and living resource data trends and supporting the integration of monitoring data with the CBP partnership’s airshed, watershed and estuarine models and other decision support tools;
- Better understanding the past, present, and future responses of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem and its watershed to management actions through management, analysis, and interpretation of long-term monitoring network data; and
- Expanding the acquisition, maintenance, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of water quality and living resources monitoring data and information important to the CBP partners.
Applications should be oriented towards further promotion and enhancement of the capacity of environmental professionals working within the partnership-oriented, implementation-focused structure of the Chesapeake Bay Program.
Types of Activities
- Activity 1: Chesapeake Bay Program Water Quality Data Manager
- To support this activity, the selected applicant will provide staff who have significant, in-depth academic and/or professional experience in the acquisition, quality assurance review, management, maintenance, and dissemination of water quality and biological resource monitoring data in support of the CBP partners’ accelerated implementation of the most cost-effective, pollutant-load-reduction-efficient and geographically targeted nutrient, sediment and chemical contaminant reduction actions. Priorities for this activity are set by the CBP’s STAR Team and its workgroups as part of their charge to provide information management, monitoring network design/coordination, and integrated analysis support to the CBP’s GITs, management/policy-setting committees, partners and stakeholders.
- The following are examples of the types of activities that the non-federal CBP partners have indicated they need based on past and recent experiences in determining progress towards effective implementation efforts in reaching the CBP’s water quality and biological resource restoration and protection goals. Applicants are encouraged to consider these examples but to also describe alternative approaches to providing for the compilation, analysis, and evaluation of tidal and watershed water quality and biological resource monitoring data in support of and to inform state, regional, and local decision-making on the implementation of the most cost-effective, pollutant-reduction-load-efficient and geographically targeted nutrient and sediment reduction actions.
- Activity 2: Chesapeake Bay Program Habitat and Living Resources Data Manager
- To support this activity, the selected applicant will provide staff who have significant, in-depth academic and/or professional experience in the acquisition, quality assurance review, management, maintenance, and dissemination of biological resource monitoring data in support of making progress toward the CBP partners’ goals regarding the restoration of tidal and nontidal aquatic ecosystems of the Chesapeake Bay. Priorities for this activity are set by the CBP’s Habitat Goal Implementation Team, as well as the Scientific, Technical Assessment and Reporting Team and its workgroups as part of their charge to provide information management, monitoring network design/coordination, and integrated analysis support to the CBP’s GITs, management/policy-setting committees, partners and stakeholders.
- The following are examples of the types of activities that the non-federal CBP partners have indicated they need based on past and recent experiences in determining progress towards effective implementation efforts in reaching the CBP’s habitat and living resource restoration and protection goals. Applicants are encouraged to consider these examples but to also describe alternative approaches to providing for the compilation, analysis, and evaluation of tidal and nontidal aquatic ecosystem monitoring data in support of and to inform state, regional, and local decision-making for achievement of CBP habitat and living resource goals.
Funding Information
- The total estimated federal funding under this solicitation is approximately $2,100,000 for one cooperative agreement. Funding will be awarded incrementally in the amount of $350,000 per year for six years depending on funding availability, satisfactory performance, Agency priorities, and other applicable considerations.
- Activity 1: $1,092,000 ($182,000 per year for six years)
- Activity 2: $1,008,000 ($168,000 per year for six years).
Eligibility Criteria
- Funds are available for technical and general assistance grants to nonprofit organizations, State, tribal (federally recognized) and local governments, colleges, universities, and interstate agencies. For-profit organizations are not eligible to submit applications in response to this RFA.
- For an application to be considered eligible for funding, project-related work included in the application must take place within the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which includes portions of Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, and all of the District of Columbia.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
