Response Due: 2 February 2016

NOAA has announced $40 million (USD) in grants for projects restoring Great Lakes Habitat.

NOAA delivers funding and technical expertise to restore Great Lakes coastal habitats. These habitats support valuable fisheries and other resources; improve water quality; provide recreational opportunities for the public's use and enjoyment; and buffer our coastal communities from the impacts of changing lake levels.

Projects funded through NOAA have strong on-the-ground habitat restoration components that provide social and economic benefits for people and their communities in addition to long-term ecological habitat improvements. Through this solicitation, NOAA seeks to openly compete funding available for multi-year Great Lakes regional habitat restoration partnerships (Partnerships). Partnerships will result in implementation of a wide-range of individual habitat restoration projects focused in U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOCs) (www.epa.gov/glnpo/aoc/) with funds provided by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Priority projects in AOCs have been identified and continue to be identified for GLRI funding each fiscal year. The Partnership should be flexible related to which AOCs they may work in, and be able to work with NOAA and other federal and state agencies to continue to identify and implement priority projects in targeted AOCs. The Partnership will also need to be able to implement a variety of project types that will contribute to the removal of habitat related Beneficial Use Impairments contributing to delisting of targeted AOCs. This document describes the types of habitat restoration Partnerships that NOAA envisions establishing, explains the qualities that NOAA deems desirable in such Partnerships, and describes criteria under which applications will be evaluated for funding consideration. Partnership applications selected through this announcement will be implemented through a multi-year cooperative agreement, and will ultimately involve joint selection of habitat restoration projects. Awards will be dependent upon the amount of funds made available to NOAA for this purpose by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). See greatlakesrestoration.us/.

Funding of approximately $5,000,000 is expected to be available to establish habitat restoration Partnerships in 2016, with annual funding anticipated to maintain them for up to three years. Individual awards are anticipated to range between $1,000,000 and $40,000,000 in federal funds for the entire three-year partnership. Typical Partnership awards are expected to range from $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 per year. Voluntary cost sharing will be considered in project evaluation as described in Section V.A.4. Funding will support both engineering and design projects and on the ground implementation projects. Funds will be administered by NOAA's Restoration Center (RC) Great Lakes Region. This is not a request for individual habitat restoration project proposals.

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