Department of Agriculture CA State Conservation Innovation Grant

ACTION: NOTICE
Conservation Innovation Grants Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 Announcement for Program Funding-California

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number: 10.912

SUMMARY: The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), an agency under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is announcing availability of Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) funding to stimulate the development and adoption of innovative conservation approaches and technologies. Applications will be accepted from California. NRCS anticipates that the amount available for support of this program in FY 2013 will be up to $375,000. Grants to eligible entities and individuals may not exceed $75,000. Applications are requested from eligible governmental or non-governmental organizations or individuals for competitive consideration of grant awards for projects between 1 and 3 years in duration.

Funds will be awarded through a two-phase statewide competitive grants process that will include (1) a pre-proposal process and (2) a full proposal process. The full proposal process will only be open to applicants whose pre-proposal applications are selected by NRCS for further consideration. Both phases are described in this announcement, but only pre-proposals are being solicited at this time.

This notice identifies the objectives, eligibility criteria, and application instructions for CIG projects. Applications will be screened for completeness and compliance with the provisions of this notice. Incomplete applications will be eliminated from competition, and notification of elimination will be mailed to the applicant. NRCS will request a full proposal package only from those applicants selected in the pre-proposal phase.

DATES: Applications for the pre-proposal phase must be received by NRCS before 4 p.m. on March 22, 2013. NRCS will announce selected pre-proposal applications by April 5, 2013. Selected applicants will then be required to submit a full proposal package to NRCS by 4 p.m. on May 17, 2013.

ADDRESSES: Applications sent via express mail or overnight courier service must be sent to the following address: USDA-NRCS, CIG Program, 430 G Street # 4164, Davis CA 95616-4164, Attn: Erik Beardsley. Applications sent via the United States Postal Service must be sent to the following address: USDA-NRCS, CIG Program, 430 G Street # 4164, Davis CA 95616-4164, Attn: Erik Beardsley. Applications sent electronically must be sent through www.grants.gov or to Erik.Beardsley@ca.usda.gov.

For more information contact:
Erik Beardsley
State CIG Program Manager
430 G Street # 4164Davis CA
95616-4164
Phone: (530) 792-5649
E-mail: Erik.Beardsley@ca.usda.gov

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

I. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION

A. Legislative Authority
The Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program was authorized as part of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) [16 U.S.C. 3839aa-8] under Section 2509 of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-246). The Secretary of Agriculture delegated the authority for the administration of EQIP and CIG to the State Conservationist of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), who is the agency representative of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). EQIP is funded and administered by NRCS under the authorities of the CCC.

B. Overview
The purpose of CIG is to stimulate the development and adoption of innovative conservation approaches and technologies, while leveraging the Federal investment in environmental enhancement and protection in conjunction with agricultural production. CIG projects are expected to lead to the transfer of conservation technologies, management systems, and innovative approaches into NRCS policy, technical manuals, guides, and references, or to the private sector. CIG does not fund research projects and projects intended to test hypotheses do not qualify for a CIG award. CIG is used to apply or demonstrate previously proven technology. It is a vehicle to stimulate development and adoption of conservation approaches or technologies that have been studied sufficiently to indicate a high likelihood of success, and that are a candidate for eventual technology transfer or institutionalization. CIG promotes sharing of skills, knowledge, technologies, and facilities among communities, governments, and other institutions to ensure that scientific and technological developments are accessible to a wider range of users. CIG funds projects targeting innovative on-the-ground conservation, including pilot projects and field demonstrations.

NRCS will accept applications under this notice for single or multi-year projects, not to exceed 3 years, submitted by eligible entities from California. Eligible entities include Federally- recognized Indian tribes, State and local units of government, and non-governmental organizations and individuals.

A two-phase evaluation process will be utilized for applications submitted under this notice. The first phase requires the applicant to submit a pre-proposal application. Pre-proposal applications will be screened for completeness and compliance with the provisions of this notice. Incomplete applications will be eliminated from competition, and notification of elimination will be mailed to the applicant. NRCS staff will evaluate complete pre-proposal applications based on how they demonstrate the use of innovative technologies and/or approaches to address at least one of the topics provided in section I.D. of this notice.

NRCS will only request a full proposal package from those applicants selected in the pre-proposal process. Complete applications received by applicable deadlines will be evaluated by a technical peer review panel based on the Application Evaluation Criteria identified in the application instructions in section VI.B. Full proposal applications, along with their associated technical peer review, will then be forwarded to the Review Board. The Review Board will make its recommendations for project approval to the NRCS State Conservationist who will make the final selections.

C. Innovative Conservation Projects or Activities
For the purposes of CIG, the proposed innovative project or activity must encompass the development, field testing, evaluation, implementation, and monitoring of:
• Conservation adoption approaches or incentive systems; or
• Promising conservation technologies, practices, systems, procedures, or approaches; or
• Environmental soundness with goals of environmental protection and natural resource enhancement.

To be given priority consideration, the innovative project or activity must comply with all federal, state, and local regulations throughout the duration of the project and should:
• Make use of a proven technology or a technology that has been studied sufficiently to indicate a high probability for success;
• Demonstrate and verify environmental (soil, water, air, plants, energy, and animal) effectiveness, utility, affordability, and usability of conservation technology in the field;
• Adapt conservation technologies, management, practices, systems, procedures, approaches, and incentive systems to improve performance and encourage adoption;
• Introduce conservation systems, approaches, and procedures from another geographic area or agricultural sector; or
• Demonstrate transferability of knowledge.

D. State Component

1. Category
For FY 2013, NRCS will consider proposals that demonstrate the use of innovative technologies and/or approaches to address at least one bulleted topic listed below.

State Criteria
• The projects need to be designed with an understanding of NRCS practices standards and result in technology that can be used to augment agency technical guidance criteria.

Water Quality:

Demonstrate how technologies like bioreactors and agricultural use of reclaimed water can be used in conservation systems to reduce the amount of nutrients, pesticides and sediment leaving irrigated cropland.

Demonstrate technologies to monitor and document the effects of conservation practices addressing on-farm water quality to support trading credits.
Demonstrate systems to improve rates, timing and uniformity of manure applications to farm land.

Water Quantity:

Demonstrate new and innovative methods or procedures for on-farm irrigation flow measurement used for irrigation scheduling; or irrigation performance evaluation.

Demonstrate new and innovative irrigation scheduling tools, methods or systems.

Air Quality & Climate Change:

Demonstrate practical methods for amending cropland, pasture or rangeland soil with organic soil additives (e.g. compost or biochar) to increase soil water holding capacity and soil organic matter content. Projects must provide monitoring methods for collecting data to estimate potential reduced ambient greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; carbon sequestration; or soil decontamination benefits.

Demonstrate practical adaptation strategies for crop systems affected by drought to address salinity intrusion in water; disconnects between flowering and pollination; or other climate change impacts. Example: Modification of typical pollinator hedgerow plant mixes to increase pollinator resilience to changes in flower opening timing.

Demonstrate benefits of conservation tillage and monitoring methods/technology for collecting data to estimate potential benefits such as improved soil water holding capacity and increased soil organic matter as drought adaption strategies; reduced fuel use; increased carbon sequestration; or reduced GHG emissions.

Energy Conservation:
Priority Need: Evaluate and demonstrate reductions of on-farm greenhouse gas emissions through the use of on-farm renewable energy systems (e.g. hydropower, solar, geothermal, and/or wind) that displace fossil fuel based energy.
Priority Need: Develop and/or demonstrate innovative implementation systems to increase on-farm energy efficiency by achieving greater use of energy audits that address both headquarters (buildings, equipment) and landscape (management practices) level operations and an increase in adoption of energy efficiency equipment upgrades.

Demonstrate the feasibility and document the relevant issues associated with biomass to energy projects using conversion technologies such as anaerobic digestion, transesterification, hydro-treating, thermal conversion, and biomass-to-Liquid.

Evaluate and demonstrate irrigation related energy savings through the use of telemetry-enabled soil moisture monitoring networks and automated application system controls.

Develop and/or demonstrate innovative implementation systems to increase energy savings through adaptive management cropping systems that utilize crop rotations that include legumes and grasses in long term no-till systems that will increase nutrient cycling through enhanced soil biological activity.

Demonstrate the feasibility and document the relevant issues associated with using low-head hydropower turbines in surface water sources such as in-stream installations and small dams (e.g. using a flow-through or pumpback configuration).

Waste Recycling- Resource Conservation

• Priority Need: Evaluate and demonstrate the technologies for recycling excessive biomass waste with the creation of on-farm/in-forest products (e.g. biochar, gasification, energy products and/ or remanufacturing).

• Priority Need: Develop and/or demonstrate innovative biomass recycling systems through a waste management system plan or equivalent to increase the conservation benefits of fire hazard reduction and/or decrease the cost of installing conservation practices by the salvage of unwanted biomass created by a conservation practice.

• Priority Need: Evaluate and document the relevant issues associated with using unused/unwanted biomass and the desired retention qualifications or conservation thresholds associated with wildlife, fire hazard and plant, water and soil quality.
• Priority Need: Develop and/or demonstrate the California use of the National Conservation Practice 633-Waste Recycling standard, its considerations and conservation guidelines for forestland biomass recycling, energy use and/or reduction and at least one example of an in-forest waste recycling specification, job sheet and a waste management system plan or equivalent.

Wildlife:
• Develop strategies to integrate wildlife habitat management into the agricultural working lands matrix to promote holistic, ecosystem-based conservation plans that support the suite of ecosystem services.
• Demonstrate cost, effectiveness, and durability of alternatives or modifications to wood fence corner posts that provide raptor perches.
• Demonstrate cost, effectiveness, and durability of alternatives or modifications to capping open pipes used in NRCS conservation practices, to reduce trapping of birds and other wildlife.
• Development of CA Ecological Site Description Database of wildlife species associated with ESDs at the Land Resource Unit (LRU) including species recognized as obligate, focal, keystone and/or “drivers” of plant communities.
• Demonstrate and quantify the impacts of grazing as a sage-grouse habitat management tool in meadows and sage-brush communities.
• Document the benefits to other wildlife species of improving pollinator habitat.
• Document the benefits to wildlife, particularly amphibians and reptiles, from downed wood, snags and basking structures.

II. FUNDING AVAILABILITY

NRCS anticipates that the amount available for support of this program in FY 2013 will be up to $375,000.

CIG will fund single and multi-year projects, not to exceed 3 years (anticipated project start date of September 1, 2013). Funds will be awarded through a nationwide competitive grants process. The maximum award amount for any project will not exceed $75,000 in FY 2013.