2010 Buzzards Bay Municipal Grant Program

Municipal Grants Awarded

• Town of Wareham (Tucy North – Agawam River Land Protection Project) – $45,000 to protect 180 acres of land in the Plymouth-Carver Aquifer, the principal sole source of drinking water for a large geographic area. The property includes frontage on the Agawam River (Glen Charlie Pond) and contains some of the best remaining pine barren habitat on the North Atlantic coast of the United States. The land acquisition will protect forested watershed lands, wetlands, rare species habitat and drinking water supplies. The land will also provide public access via a walking trail.
• Town of Mattapoisett (Decas Mattapoisett River Lands Protection Project) – $45,000 to purchase three parcels of undeveloped land totaling 63.6 acres within the Mattapoisett River Valley Aquifer, which acts as a drinking water supply source for surrounding communities. The property includes 1,500 feet of frontage on the Mattapoisett River and over 1,000 feet of frontage on one of its tributaries, Tripps Mill Brook. Completion of this project will permanently protect wetlands, wildlife corridors, rare species habitat and water resources. This project is a component of a larger effort to acquire and protect 195 acres in the Mattapoisett River Valley.
• Town of Marion (Acquisition of Rentumis Property/Rochester) – $45,000 to protect 54.2 acres of undeveloped land in the Mattapoisett River Valley Aquifer, which acts as a drinking water supply source for surrounding communities. The property includes a ¼ mile of frontage on the Mattapoisett River and contains critical wetland habitats. Acquisition of this property will provide a key link to completing a solid greenbelt of permanently protected open space from Hartley Road in Rochester to south of Wolf Island Road in Mattapoisett. While the property is in Rochester, the town of Marion sought to protect it because it abuts land currently owned by Marion containing two of its drinking water wells.
• Town of Bourne (Bournedale Herring Run – Little Sandy Pond Culvert) – $45,000 to conduct the necessary survey, engineering and construction work to replace an existing culvert under Little Sandy Pond Road in Bournedale. The culvert acts as the sole access point into and out of the 376-acre Great Herring Pond and 90-acre Little Herring Pond both of which serve as herring spawning grounds. While the existing culvert is passable by fish, it is compromised due to erosion, scouring and daily traffic loads, which threaten its structural integrity. The replacement of this culvert will ensure migrating herring will have safe and available passage through this section of the herring run.
• Town of Rochester (Carr Family Bogs Land Reservation Project) – $45,000 to acquire and protect a 35-acre property on the Rochester/Marion town line. Acquisition of this parcel will provide a key link to over 750 acres of existing permanently protected land and will create a greenway from Mary’s Pond in Rochester to County Road in Marion. The property contains more than 1,500 feet of frontage on Hales Brook, two potential vernal pools, diverse upland, wooded swamp, and beautiful stonewalls along an ancient way. Public access for passive recreation purposes will be provided.
• Town of Dartmouth (Dartmouth’s Assessors’ Parcel) – $6,500 to hire a contractor to digitize the 2009 assessors’ parcel map changes, incorporate the assessors data into digital format, bring existing parcel data and updates up to state mapping compliance, and correct any discrepancies in the data. These activities will keep the town’s digital data updated for multiple municipal uses.
• Town of Fairhaven (Wolf Island South Land Conservation Project) – $30,506 to acquire and protect an undeveloped 18-acre property within the Mattapoisett River Valley Aquifer, which acts as a drinking water supply source for surrounding communities. The property proposed for protection has nearly 1,700 feet of frontage on the Mattapoisett River. Protection of this property will reduce development pressure on the Mattapoisett River aquifer, preserve critical wetlands and rare species habitat and result in a block of 210 contiguous acres of protected land. This project is a component of a larger effort to acquire and protect 195 acres in the Mattapoisett River Valley.
• Town of Rochester (Mahoney Wolf Island North Land Conservation Project) – $20,506 to acquire and protect an undeveloped 10.7-acre parcel within the Mattapoisett River Valley Aquifer, which acts as a drinking water supply source for surrounding communities. The property proposed for protection has over 600 feet of frontage on the Mattapoisett River. Acquisition of this property will ensure permanent protection of wetlands, floodplain, wetland buffers and rare species habitat. Additionally, the land would provide public access for passive recreation directly adjacent to protected lands owned by various municipalities and the Department of Fish and Game. This project is a component of a larger effort to acquire and protect 195 acres in the Mattapoisett River Valley.

 

Background

As part of the Buzzards Bay NEP’s federal FY10 work plan, on April 8, 2010, the Buzzards Bay NEP posted a Request for Responses (RFR, a request for proposals) as part of our municipal grant program. The RFR is still posted on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Comm-Pass.com system. A total of $282,500 of federal funds are available. Applications were due by 4:00 PM, Wednesday June 2, 2010. In August 2010, The Buzzards Bay NEP awarded $282,512 in federal grants to help seven South Coast communities protect and restore Buzzards Bay. The grants will fund land conservation and infrastructure improvement projects designed to conserve open space and rare species habitat, protect drinking water resources, and restore herring migration grounds. Awards were announced in this August 2010 municipal grant award press release.

The Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program provides grants an technical assistance to Buzzards bay municipalities in their efforts to protect and restore water quality and living resources in Buzzards Bay and its surrounding watershed. Our funding is 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).

For your convenience, we provide this link the 2010 RFR (MS word document) Download the Spring 2010 RFR as Microsoft Word document (type your responses directly in the document)

pdf version of the RFR

Purpose of grant program according is as follows: “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.”

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 $45,000, and no municipality may be awarded more than $75,000 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.commbuys.com/bso/. 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.)

Below is a copy of the last RFR (opening in their own browser window) as a MS Word document. Applicants can type their responses and proposal information in the document. Applications may require additional Commonwealth forms (although most municipalities already have these on file with us), and these can be downloaded on the COMM-PASS website link above.

Download the Spring 2010 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 according to the Spring 2009 RFR. 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 2010 Round (not yet posted)

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: Are benthic surveys and mapping of harbors, undertaken to determine if certain areas meet DMF’s requirements for permitting aquaculture projects, eligible for funding?

Answer to Question 1: This type of project would be eligible for funding consideration under category 10 “Other Activities in Support of the Buzzards Bay Management Plan,�? as it seems to match the goals of the Protecting and Enhancing Shellfish Resources Action Plan. However, applicants with proposals in this category should explicitly identify for the benefit of the reviewers, which Action Plans, goals, objectives, or recommendations of the Buzzards Bay Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan they feel their proposal meets (see buzzardsbay.org/ccmptoc.htm).

Question 2: Is a project that involves the assessment, design, and removal of a culvert within the Bournedale Herring Run in Bourne, which acts as the sole passage for anadromous fish into Great Herring Pond, eligible for consideration? The culvert, in its existing condition is impeding fish passage and must be replaced; however, the culvert lies just outside the Buzzards Bay watershed boundary.

Answer to Question 2: The RFR summary paragraph states “Projects must implement a recommendation or recommendations in the Buzzards Bay Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan and be principally located within the Buzzards Bay Watershed [emphasis added].” The map figure in the RFR states: “Projects must be located in the Buzzards Bay watershed as delineated by the purple shaded area above, although broader components of projects like outreach and education can be town-wide.” In response to a similar question in a previous grant round we responded, “All projects must be located principally within the Buzzards Bay watershed. Projects that straddle the watershed boundary, enhance greenway linkages both inside and outside the Buzzards Bay watershed, or applications that include linked complimentary areas within and outside the watershed boundary may be considered.”

Herring Pond is on the Buzzards Bay watershed groundwater divide, and a portion of the pond is within the Buzzards Bay watershed. Because the purpose of the proposed culvert improvement project is to restore upstream habitat for juvenile herring (and that pond is principally in the Buzzards Bay watershed) we have determined that projects that improve herring migration on the Herring River in Bourne are eligible for funding.

Question 3: Are surveys to correct boundary errors, install new property markers, alter conservation restriction (CR) boundaries to adjust for land swaps, or similar work on already protected lands eligible for funding?

Answer to Question 3: Yes, such projects are eligible for funding consideration. As stated in the RFR, grant funds may be used for “appraisals, site evaluations, or professional land surveys of any parcels where wetlands, wetland buffer zones, or endangered species habitats are a major feature. These evaluations are intended for parcels that are expected to be available for public land purchases, permanent conservation restrictions or easements, or purchase by land trust organizations.”