NOAA Great Lakes Habitat Restoration Project Grants under the U.S. Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in Areas of Concern

compete funding available for habitat restoration in U.S. Great Lakes Areas of Concern (http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/aoc/) under the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative as anticipated in the President's FY2015 Budget. Applications should be submitted for any project that is to be considered for this funding, even for those projects already submitted as applications to other NOAA competitions. Competition will ensure that the most beneficial restoration projects are selected to realize significant ecological gains. Applications selected for funding through this solicitation will be implemented through a grant or cooperative agreement. Funds will be administered by the NOAA Restoration Center (RC). Multi-year cooperative agreement awards will be considered, and additional releases of funds may be used to fund selected proposals through FY17 without further competition. Awards are dependent upon the amount of funds made available to NOAA for this purpose by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. NOAA anticipates approximately $15 million may be available over the next three years to maintain selected awards, dependent upon the level of funding made available by Congress. One, two, or three year proposals will be accepted. Award funding options will include: • For one year requests for habitat implementation proposals, NOAA will not accept applications requesting less than $500,000 or more than $6 million of federal funds. Typical awards for one year requests for habitat restoration implementation are expected to range between $500,000 and $2 million. • For one year requests for engineering and design proposals, NOAA will not accept applications requesting less than $75,000 or more than $350,000. Typical awards for engineering and design are expected to range between $100,000 and $350,000. • For multi-year awards, regardless of the type of proposal, NOAA will not accept applications requesting less than $750,000 and more than $10 million for up to a three year award period.