Chesapeake Bay Program Office Fiscal Year 2021 Request for Applications for CBP 2025 Tidal Water Model for the Assessment of 2035 Climate Change Risk to the Chesapeake TMDL

Background
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.

Grant Details
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). The mainstem TMDL Bay Model will be under the technical guidance of the CBP Modeling Workgroup, which is charged with providing state-of-the-art decision-support modeling tools to the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership. The RFA seeks cost-effective applications from eligible applicants to apply a state-of-the-science unstructured grid model to the tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries and embayments.
The project period is up to six years from an expected start date of December 05, 2021, with total estimated funding not exceeding $1,650,000.

Eligibility Requirements
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. Applicants must provide a minimum of 5 percent of the total cost of the project as non-federal cost-share.

Period of Performance
The project period is up to six years from an expected start date of December 05, 2021.

Grant Value
The total estimated funding for six years is approximately $1,650,000 with an estimated $250,000 available for the first year and $250,000 - $300,00 available in subsequent years. Higher-budget years are for the model development period of 2022 – 2024.

Place of Performance
The 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.