Deadline: 20-Sep-21
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Chesapeake Bay Program Office (CBPO) is announcing a Request for Applications (RFA) for supporting Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) goals related to the CBP requirement of a state-of-the-science model of the Chesapeake Bay tidal waters using an unstructured grid to be completed and fully operational by 2025.
The new 2025 tidal Bay Model is required for the assessment of the Chesapeake TMDL water quality standards under 2035 climate change conditions. Specific support requested is for an overall main stem Bay and tributary TMDL simulation framework of model development and application to support the 2025 assessment of 2035 climate change risks and challenges to the Chesapeake TMDL water quality standards. The work includes the development and calibration of a fully-operational model by December 2024 for the tidal waters of the Chesapeake using the CBP ICM water quality code (FORTRAN or equivalent).
EPA 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). 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’s seven watershed jurisdictions 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 meeting the objectives of the 2017 Midpoint Assessment of the 2010 Chesapeake Bay TMDL;
- Support establishment of target pollutant loads for future WIPs addressing 2035 climate change risk to the Chesapeake TMDL’s living-resource-based water quality standards;
- Support adaptive management by the CBP partnership; and
- Support Executive Council directives, e.g., those related to environmental justice and climate change.
The applications should be oriented towards:
- Development, calibration, validation, and scientific and management applications of complex, linked environmental models;
- Working with multi-institutional and multi-agency teams on collaborative development, calibration, validation, and scientific and management application of complex linked environmental models;
- Active model research and model development programs focused on the productive littoral areas of estuarine and coastal ecosystems;
- Full, detailed, and accurate simulation of the effects of nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment, and climate change related factors in the assessment of the dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, clarity, and submerged aquatic vegetation water quality standards in all the Chesapeake Bay TMDL’s designated uses;
- 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 and
- As appropriate and to the extent practicable, working with underserved communities and seeking partnership with Tribal communities.
Funding Information
- CBPO plans to award one cooperative agreement under this RFA. Funding for the activity is approximately $250,000 to $350,000 annually for six years, depending on funding availability, satisfactory performance, Agency priorities, and other applicable considerations. The total estimated funding for the activity for six years is approximately $1,650,000.
- The expected project period for the cooperative agreement is six 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 December 05, 2021.
Eligibility Criteria
- Nonprofit organizations, state and local governments, federally recognized tribes, 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 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.
- Applications must show how they will meet the 5 percent cost-share requirement.
- Applications requesting funding for more than the maximum of the cumulative funding range for the RFA will be rejected.
- If an application is submitted that includes any ineligible tasks or activities, that portion of the application will be ineligible for funding and may, depending on the extent to which it affects the entire application, render the entire application ineligible for funding.
- Applicants must address this RFA’s activity to be considered eligible.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=335118
