Mississippi River Basin 2017 Asian Carp Partnership Projects for USFWS Funding | F17AS00311

Opportunity Information: Apply for F17AS00311

The Mississippi River Basin 2017 Asian Carp Partnership Projects for USFWS Funding (Funding Opportunity Number F17AS00311) is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) discretionary grant notice under CFDA 15.608 focused on preventing and controlling Asian carp outside the Great Lakes. Using FY2017 base funds, USFWS set out to support on-the-ground and basin-wide work in the Ohio River Basin and the Upper Mississippi River Basin, aligning funded activities with two established regional plans: the Ohio River Basin Asian Carp Control Strategy Framework and the Upper Mississippi River Basin Asian Carp Control Strategy Framework. The overall intent is to fund practical management actions and produce defined deliverables that USFWS is directed by Congress to carry out in partnership with state natural resource agencies.

The projects supported by this opportunity span the major pillars of Asian carp management. That includes early detection and rapid response efforts (finding new incursions quickly and acting before populations become established), population status and assessment work (monitoring, surveying, and understanding distribution and abundance), and containment activities aimed at limiting spread within and between connected waterways. It also covers direct control and removal actions where carp are already present, along with coordination and outreach components that help agencies and partners share information, align tactics across jurisdictions, and communicate with stakeholders who are affected by management actions. In short, the funding targets both the technical fieldwork and the cross-agency coordination needed to manage an invasive species that does not respect state boundaries.

A key feature of this notice is that it is not an open, competitive funding opportunity. USFWS issued it as a notice of intent to make single-source awards, meaning there is no application process for outside applicants. The planned awards were to be made without competition under the Department of the Interior justification at 505 DM 2.14.B.(4), based on the determination that competition was not practical. The rationale given is that the relevant state natural resource management agencies (and their designated partners) are uniquely positioned to do this work because they have the legal jurisdiction and on-the-ground authorities in the locations where activities will occur, they are already integral members of the collaborative partnerships addressing Asian carp in these basins, and they bring specialized technical capacity. USFWS also notes these agencies can leverage federal funds with other funding sources and related management efforts in a way that other entities cannot, and that their role and perspective are not reasonably replaceable.

The intended recipients were specifically identified: Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Iowa State University acting as the designee for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The opportunity anticipated five awards in total, with an award ceiling listed as $424,693. The notice was created on July 13, 2017, with an original closing date of July 20, 2017, reflecting that the posting functioned primarily as a formal notification and documentation of the planned, targeted awards rather than a solicitation for proposals from the general public.

Overall, this grant opportunity is best understood as a coordinated, multi-state implementation mechanism: USFWS providing directed funding to specific state partners to carry out regionally aligned Asian carp prevention and control work in the Ohio River and Upper Mississippi River basins, with defined deliverables tied to early detection, assessment, containment, removal, and broader coordination and outreach.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Mississippi River Basin 2017 Asian Carp Partnership Projects for USFWS Funding" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.608.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 13, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 20, 2017 There is not an application process for this funding opportunity. This is a notice of intent to award single source grants under justification 505DM 2.14.B.(4).. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $424,693.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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