Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program

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Grants & Other Funding Opportunities

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Alert: Funding Raised to $162,500

Spring 2009 Municipal Grants RFR Closed

Submission deadline was 4 PM, Wednesday June 24, 2009

Applications Received

The Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program received 13 proposals, from 10 municipalities, totaling $233,900. We have $162,500 available (increased amended amount). Applications were received from the following communities: Acushnet, Bourne, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Falmouth (2 proposals), Marion (2 proposals), Mattapoisett, Rochester (2 proposals), Wareham, and Westport. Applications were submitted under: Stormwater Treatment Design (1 proposal), Construction of Stormwater Designs (1 proposal), Wetland/Open Space/ Habitat (7 proposals), Migratory Fish (2 proposals), and "Other" Category (2 proposals).

Background

The Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program has made available $127,500 in federal funds to Buzzards Bay municipalities for projects to protect and restore water quality and living resources in Buzzards Bay and its surrounding watershed. This funding is being made available through the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management office and the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, and is posted on the state's procurement website Comm-Pass.com (search "Buzzards" after clicking the "search for a solicitations" link in the "SOLICITATIONS" tab).

Purpose of the RFR: "The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), through the Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program in the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM), announces that funding is available to assist eligible Buzzards Bay watershed municipalities in the protection of open space, rare and endangered species habitat, and freshwater and saltwater wetlands, to help restore tidally restricted salt marshes, to develop designs and remediate stormwater discharges threatening water quality, to provide support for mapping stormwater drainage networks, to construct pump-out facilities, to update town parcel data, to digitize wetland boundaries approved in permits, to assist in the monitoring of water quality to prioritize stormwater remediation, to address problems in migratory fish passage, and to implement other recommendations contained in the watershed management plan for Buzzards Bay. This work is being conducted in accordance with a Cooperative Agreement with the US EPA using federal funds."

Read the cover letter to the municipalities.

Eligible Respondents to our Grant Programs

Unless otherwise specified in an RFR, eligible municipalities include Fall River, Westport, Dartmouth, New Bedford, Acushnet, Fairhaven, Rochester, Mattapoisett, Marion, Wareham, Middleborough, Carver, Plymouth, Bourne, Falmouth, and Gosnold. However, specific restoration and protection projects must lie principally within the Buzzards Bay watershed (see map below). For participation in the stormwater program, the discharge must be contributing to an existing impairment.

Municipalities must submit separate application forms for each grant proposal. Municipalities may submit any number of applications in any grant category. However, no single project award can exceed $35,000, and no municipality may be awarded more than $50,000 through this solicitation. Municipalities may submit applications in partnership with other public or private organizations, or subcontract tasks, however, contracts will be awarded only to municipalities.

Application Information

To view our solicitation, and to download the forms, go to www.comm-pass.com. On the search for solicitations page type "Buzzards Bay Watershed" on the keyword line, and on the 4th line down select "open" in the document status pull down box, then click the "search" button. A results line will appear "1 documents match your search." Click on this. (Sorry there is no hard link, this is a dynamic link website.)

To save you time, below are copies of the RFR (opening in their own browser window) as a MS Word document (you can type in your responses and proposal information in the document). If you need additional Commonwealth forms, use the COMM-PASS website link above.

Download the Spring 2009 RFR as Microsoft Word document (type your responses directly in the document)

Eligible uses of funds

Below is an overview of projects eligible for funding. Refer to the RFR for additional details.

• 1) Stormwater Remediation Designs
• 2) Implementation and construction of existing stormwater designs.
• 3) Stormwater Mapping Support
• 4) Wetland-Open Space-Habitat Restoration, Preservation, Acquisition or Protection Grants
• 5) Town Parcel GIS Data Acquisition or Update or digitizing of Wetland Boundaries from wetland permits
• 6) Migratory Fish Passage and Habitat Restoration
• 7) Water quality testing in support for establishing priorities for stormwater remediation
• 8) Construction of a boat pump-out facility in a municipality or harbor where none exists.
• 9) Creation of online reporting systems for the tracking the Operation, Maintenance, and
• 10) Other activities in support of the Buzzards Bay Management Plan.

Questions Received and Responses to the Spring 2009 Round

Questions received (which may be paraphrased), and tentative answers to those questions. These tentative responses will not be finalized until the Question period ends.

Question 1: How should we determine the value of services donated by skilled professionals, which will be used as match in our grant application?

Response to Question 1: It is up to the applicant how to value donated professional services, but the Buzzards Bay NEP will review such calculations reasonableness. For donated service by people using their professional skills, it is common practice to use typical professional hourly wages for the services offered, including fringe and indirect. For donated services by unskilled volunteers we recommend using the values on the following website: www.independentsector.org/programs/research/volunteer_time.html.

Question 2: On page 13 of the RFR, under C. Additional Required Documentation, the last bulleted item says if a respondent is selected to complete a contract they must make a statement attesting to the conditions in Item 24 of the EEA Supplemental Terms and Conditions located in Attachment E. However, Attachment E does not contain 24 items, there are only 22. Please advise.

Response to Question 2: The last bulleted item under Item 3.A (Additional Required Documentation) refers to an anti-collusion statement requirement in previous versions of the EEA Supplemental Terms and Conditions. The Supplemental Terms document has since been updated and this requirement was removed. The RFR will be updated to remove this requirement.

Question 3:

Response to Question 3:

Recent Previous Awards

Fall 2008 municipal grant awards

March 2008 municipal grant awards

Spring 2007 municipal grant awards

Fall 2006 minigrant awards.

Suggestions for applying for other grants

All BB NEP grants, and grants solicitations issued by other state agencies, are posted on the state's Comm-Pass system. If you check the Comm-Pass website regularly, you will be informed of grant opportunities from the Buzzards Bay NEP and other Commonwealth of Massachusetts agencies.

The Buzzards Bay NEP provides technical support to municipalities within our watershed, and may also provide technical support outside our watershed depending on staff availability and transferability of the project.


Is your town having trouble finding match for environmental grants? Match Buzzards Bay NEP or CZM CPR grants with funding from other sources, like Massachusetts Environmental Trust. CZM grants and MET funds are state funds and can be used to match federally funded grant programs like the Buzzards Bay NEP's or Massachusetts DEP's 319 NPS program.

Click on the link Other Funding Opportunities for funding opportunities in other agency programs.

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