Notice of Intent to Award | BOR LC 17 N001

Opportunity Information: Apply for BOR LC 17 N001

This Notice of Intent to Award describes a planned cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, focused on research into how recycled (reused) water mixes within large reservoirs and what that mixing means for water quality and environmental impacts. The work is intended to run for three fiscal years, starting in FY 2017 and continuing through FY 2019, and it centers on developing, testing, and evaluating modeling approaches that can reliably predict reservoir conditions when reuse water is introduced as part of a drinking water supply strategy. Because this is explicitly labeled as a Notice of Intent to Award, it signals the agency’s intention to fund a specific effort rather than serving as an open competition for new applicants.

The proposed recipient is the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), which will lead the research with guidance from Reclamation’s technical staff based in Denver, Colorado. The project is described as being grounded in up-to-date findings from a literature review and shaped by expert oversight from UNLV personnel in collaboration with Reclamation engineers and scientists. A key feature of the effort is that UNLV is already working with the Southern Nevada Water Authority to simulate limnological conditions in Lake Mead, and UNLV also brings experience from prior or ongoing work involving recycled water mixing in San Vicente Reservoir in San Diego County, California. Those two reservoir systems, Lake Mead and San Vicente, are presented as technical foundations that will be leveraged to strengthen understanding and decision-making for reservoir settings relevant to Reclamation’s Oklahoma-Texas Area Office.

At the core of the research is a practical management question: if reused water is added to reservoirs to help meet water supply needs, what modeling approach is most appropriate, defensible, and verifiable for each reservoir type to evaluate environmental impacts and support setting an allowable contribution limit (if a limit is needed) on how much reuse water can be incorporated. In other words, the project is not only about building models, but also about establishing confidence in the modeling methods so that results can be used in real-world planning, regulatory discussions, and operational decisions. The emphasis on “verifiable” modeling suggests the work may compare alternative models, validate predictions against measured data where possible, and evaluate how reservoir characteristics (such as stratification patterns, inflow/outflow dynamics, temperature-driven layering, and mixing regimes) change the suitability of different modeling tools.

Administratively, the opportunity is listed as discretionary funding and uses a cooperative agreement instrument, which typically indicates substantial involvement by the federal agency in shaping or participating in the work, rather than a more hands-off grant. The funding activity category is Science and Technology and other Research and Development, and the CFDA number is 15.560. The opportunity number is BOR LC 17 N001, with an original closing date of March 1, 2017, and a creation date of February 15, 2017. The award ceiling is stated as $321,000, and the eligible applicants category is listed as “Others,” though the narrative makes clear that UNLV is the intended awardee for this specific intent notice. The listing does not specify the number of expected awards, reinforcing that this announcement is mainly informational and tied to a planned award rather than a broad solicitation.

• The Bureau of Reclamation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Notice of Intent to Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.560.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-02-15.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-03-01. (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 $321,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for BOR LC 17 N001

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