2013 Municipal Grants

2013 Buzzards Bay Municipal Grant Program

Municipal Grants Totaling $83,460 Awarded

This year’s grants to Buzzards Bay watershed communities are:

  • $20,000 to the Town of Rochester to protect land and habitat along Dexter Mill Brook. The town will use the funds to hire an engineer to conduct a field survey and prepare a plan for the 48-acre property. The parcel consists of agricultural fields and forested upland, and contains endangered species and critical natural landscapes. The town and its partner, the Rochester Land Trust, will use the plan to assist the property owner to permanently protect areas through deed restrictions.
  • $20,000 to the Town of Wareham to develop and permit engineering plans to treat contaminated runoff discharging to the Wareham River estuary. The project will treat runoff from two outfalls located in a bulkhead at Besse Park in downtown Wareham. The receiving waters are polluted and closed to shellfishing. This project, together with other stormwater projects being undertaken by the town, will help improve water quality in the estuary.
  • $21,730 each to both the Towns of Fairhaven and Mattapoisett to support a larger initiative to permanently protect 398 acres around Nasketucket Bay. The Towns of Fairhaven and Mattapoisett, Buzzards Bay Coalition and Massachusetts Department of Conservation are collaborating on the broader project. Portions of the project area have rare and endangered species and important habitat. The project will link to the local bike path and add 18 acres of waterfront property to the Nasketucket Bay State Reservation.

Read this Newspaper Article about the award.

2013 Municipal Grant RFR Information and details

In the Spring of 2013, the Buzzards Bay NEP, through the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs’ (EEA) Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) announced the availability of $83,460 as part of the Buzzards Bay municipal grant program. Funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and administered by our program, this grant program aids towns in testing and treating stormwater discharges, protecting wetlands and wildlife habitat, improving water supplies, and safeguarding open spaces. The Buzzards Bay NEP posted a Request for Responses (RFR) as part of our municipal grant program at the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ CommBuys.com system, and this 2013 cover letter was directly sent to Buzzards Bay watershed municipalities.. Applications on this solicitation were due by 4 PM, Thursday, June 27, 2013. In July, the grant review committee met and made recommendations on the projects.

The Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program provides grants and 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 CommBuys.com.

We provided this link the RFR (MS word document) pdf version of the 2013 RFR

Eligible Respondents to our Grant Programs

Unless otherwise specified in our RFRs, 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 above). 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 could exceed $35,000, and no municipality could 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, we award contracts only to municipalities.

Eligible uses of funds

Below is an overview of projects eligible for funding according to the 2013 RFR. Generally there are no other limitations on the use of funds, other than as defined in the RFR. Refer to the RFR for additional details.

  • Stormwater remediation designs,
  • Implementation and construction of existing stormwater designs,
  • Stormwater mapping support,
  • Wetland/open space/habitat restoration, preservation, acquisition or protection,
  • Digitization of wetland boundaries or land elevations from wetland permits,
  • Migratory fish passage and habitat restoration,
  • Water quality testing in support for establishing priorities for stormwater remediation,
  • Construction of a boat pump-out facility in a municipality or harbor when none exists,
  • Creation of online reporting systems for tracking of operation, maintenance and monitoring of innovative and alternative septic systems, and
  • Other activities in support of the Buzzards Bay Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan.

 

Questions Received and Responses to the 2013 Municipal Grant Round

The BBNEP Regional Planner and grants manager Sarah Williams receives questions about our solicitations during the question and answer period. The Buzzards Bay NEP posted responses to questions, as well as on www.CommBuys.com. These answers are for clarification purposes only and do not constitute an amendment to the RFR unless expressly stated as such. We received no questions on this Solicitation

The Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program, a planning and technical assistance unit of the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management, made available funding 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 pumpout facilities, to update town parcel data (MassGIS is in the process up updating municipal parcel data statewide, therefore only those towns that are not scheduled to be brought up to Level 3 standards by MassGIS until FY13 are eligible in this category. Eligible municipalities include: Acushnet, Fairhaven, Mattapoisett, Rochester, Wareham and Westport), 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.