Deadline: 03-Feb-2025
The Water Conservation Field Services Program provides funding for the planning, prioritizing, demonstrating, and design of technology/projects that conserve and use water efficiently; mitigate risk in areas with a potential for future water conflict; and accomplish other benefits that contribute to water supply sustainability in the Western U.S.
Funding Information
- Approximately $500,000 is currently available for funding WCFSP grants in FY 2025.
- Federal cost-share, for any project, will not exceed 50 percent of the total project costs. A maximum of $100,000 per entity per FY in federal funding may be allocated to proposals awarded funding under this NOFO.
Eligible Projects
- Projects to be considered should address one of the following criteria:
- Water management and conservation planning provide entities an opportunity to document data on current water supply and demand, prepare a forecast for future water demands, identify water conservation goals, and determine conservation measures (e.g., cost/pricing of water, water accounting, landscape efficiency, information and education, water use regulation, etc.). This component involves developing a written water management and/or conservation plan.
- System Optimization Review (SOR) is a review of the applicant’s water delivery system and its processes. The SOR assesses the potential for water management improvements and identifies a plan of action containing recommendations for implementing specific improvements (e.g., SCADA and other automation to reduce specific issues such as spills, over-deliveries, and seepage) that have the potential to enhance water management.
- Designing Water Management Improvements are often the next step upon completion of water management and conservation plans or a SOR. This NOFO provides funding for the design of previously identified water management improvement projects such as pipelines, canal lining, water measurement structures, or other improvement projects that enhance water management, and includes necessary preliminary tasks needed to prepare a design such as surveying and acquiring pertinent site-specific information (e.g., hydraulic head available at site, soil testing, groundwater level).
- Demonstrating Conservation Project Technologies are activities that include the installation or application of a particular technology in an innovative way, or in a unique setting, with the intent of sharing the results with others for possible adoption. The activity should demonstrate innovative technologies in water conservation that increase technical understanding of unfamiliar water management practices that have not been previously used within the entity’s area.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicants eligible to receive an award under P.L. 111-11, Sec. 9502 to fund activities include:
- States
- Indian tribes
- Irrigation districts
- Water districts
- Other organizations with water or power delivery authority
- In addition, applicants must be located within the LCB or the State of Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Please see the location map in Section A.1 of this NOFO.
Ineligibility Criteria
- Those not eligible to receive an award include, but are not limited to, the following entities:
- Federal governmental entities
- Institutions of higher education
- Individuals
- 501(c)(6) organizations
For more information, visit Grants.gov.