Deadline: 14-Feb-25
Applications are now open for the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Headquarters Aquatic Resources Program protects and restores riparian and wetland areas, aquatic habitats, and water resources to provide functioning ecosystems for a combination of balanced and diverse uses including fish and wildlife, and for the long-term needs of future generations.
The BLM Headquarters Aquatic Resources Program continues to advance the Department of the Interior’s priorities to address the climate crisis, restore balance on public lands and waters, advance environmental justice, and invest in a clean energy future. Specific BLM Headquarters Aquatic Resources Program focuses to implement the Department priorities include, but are not limited to those actions that: protect biodiversity; restore aquatic resources; increase resistance, resilience, and adaptability to climate change and help leverage natural climate solutions; contribute to conserving at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by the year 2030; engage communities of color, low income families, and rural and indigenous communities to enhance economic opportunities related to aquatics; and use the best science and data available to make decisions.
Focus Areas
- The BLM Headquarters Aquatic Resources Program’s core functions include:
- Ecosystem Structure and Function: Protect and restore the physical and ecological processes of functioning riparian and wetland areas, aquatic habitats, and water resources.
- Water Quality: Protect and restore the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of surface water and groundwater.
- Water Availability: Ensure that water is legally and physically available for beneficial uses, including protection and restoration actions.
- Riparian, Wetland, and Aquatic Habitat: Proactively protect and restore riparian, wetland, and aquatic habitats to ensure the presence, abundance, and diversity of healthy, self-sustaining, and desirable riparian, wetland, and aquatic species and other wildlife and plant populations that depend upon these habitats, including special status species.
- Decision Support: Inventory, assess, and monitor aquatic resources to inform our understanding of condition and trend, guide the BLM’s management activities, and assess regulatory compliance.
- Environmental Compliance: Ensure full compliance with applicable federal law, Executive Orders, regulations, and policy and with state law to the extent consistent with federal law.
- Internal & External Involvement: Consult, coordinate, cooperate, and collaborate with federal, state, tribal, and local governments and other programs, partners, and communities, to foster adaptive approaches to protection and restoration and implement education and outreach programs.
- The BLM Headquarters Aquatic Resources Program has an opportunity to work with partner organizations to assist with:
- Contributing to the above-described Program core functions.
- Combating climate change and habitat loss impacts to aquatic resources.
- Restoring and connecting degraded aquatic resources.
- Increasing ecosystem resistance, resilience, and adaptability to drought, wildfires, and floods.
- Determining acceptable levels of hydrologic and ecological change given BLM management objectives.
- Advancing inventory, assessment, and monitoring activities and tools.
- Preventing the establishment and spread of invasive species.
- Increasing public knowledge of aquatic habitats on BLM managed lands, including with a targeted focus on communities of color, low-income families, and rural and indigenous communities.
Goals
- Ensuring water availability to sustain healthy riparian and wetland areas and aquatic habitats.
- Restoring degraded water resources, riparian and wetland areas, and aquatic habitats, with a focus on process-based approaches and promoting riverscape health.
- Advancing decision support models, and the inventory, assessment, and monitoring information that feeds such models, to inform the protection of remaining high quality habitats and the strategic restoration of degraded systems.
Funding information
- Estimated Total Program Funding: $ 500,000
- Award Ceiling: $500,000
- Award Floor: $50,000
Eligibility Criteria
- State governments
- County governments
- City or township governments
- Special district governments
- Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Nonprofits without 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Private institutions of higher education
Ineligibility Criteria
- Individuals and For-Profit Organizations are ineligible to apply for awards under this NOFO.
Application Requirements
- Follow these steps below to apply:
- Create a Workspace: Creating a workspace allows you to complete it online and route it through your organization for review before submitting.
- Complete a Workspace: Invite participants to the workspace so you can collaborate on the application. Required applications forms are included in the Funding Opportunity Package and can be completed in the Workspace, unless noted otherwise in the Required Forms table. Check for errors before submission.
- Submit a Workspace: An application may be submitted through workspace by clicking the Sign and Submit button on the Manage Workspace page, under the Forms tab.
- Track a Workspace Submission: After successfully submitting a workspace application is automatically assigned to the application.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.