Cooperation To Meet Water Salinity Objectives At Vernalis | BOR MP 17 N013

Opportunity Information: Apply for BOR MP 17 N013

The grant opportunity "Cooperation To Meet Water Salinity Objectives At Vernalis" (Funding Opportunity Number BOR MP 17 N013) is a Bureau of Reclamation cooperative agreement focused on reducing and better managing salinity (and related constituents like boron) in waters that ultimately discharge to the Lower San Joaquin River (LSJR), helping meet water quality goals tied to the Vernalis area. The work centers on the Grassland Resource Conservation District (GRCD) wetland complex in Merced County near Los Banos, California, where large seasonal wetlands and wildlife refuges rely on carefully timed water deliveries and drainage. The core idea is that better, faster information about flows and salt concentrations can help managers make day-to-day operational decisions that reduce salt loading to the river while still supporting wetland habitat needs.

At the center of the project is the Grassland Water District (GWD), a California water district formed under the State Water Code, covering roughly 51,537 acres with a large share in wetland habitat. GWD operates and maintains an extensive canal system (about 110 miles) that delivers water to landowners and wetland managers within its boundaries. Reclamation and GWD already have an installed monitoring network in the GRCD that has been used for water conservation and as a demonstration platform for a Real Time Management Program (RTMP). This opportunity expands that concept into a two-year pilot study intended to show how salt loads can be actively managed using real-time monitoring paired with decision support tools, with the broader goal of determining whether the approach can scale across the westside San Joaquin region.

The project is essentially a monitoring-and-management demonstration. Over the proposed two-year period, the partnership will monitor and report both the volume of water and the salt load associated with major inflows entering GRCD wetlands, key internal mixing points, deliveries to state, federal, and private wetland units, and major outflows draining back toward the LSJR. A major feature is that the data are web-enabled and publicly available in real time, which is meant to give wetland and water managers practical decision support: they can adjust operations to conserve water, reduce unnecessary spill, improve water quality within the wetland complex, and limit the discharge of higher-salinity return flows to the river during times when the river has less capacity to assimilate salt.

The RTMP concept described in the notice is stakeholder-driven rather than purely agency-directed. It relies on collecting continuous monitoring data and coupling it to modeling and forecasting of river assimilative capacity, so that exports of salt (through drainage and releases) can be timed and managed to avoid exceeding river objectives. The notice emphasizes the importance of connectivity between monitoring and modeling, meaning models should run using the latest flow and water quality conditions, and the resulting forecasts should be presented in a user-friendly way so operators can respond quickly. This aligns the project with the Salt and Boron Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) requirements for the Lower San Joaquin River and the regulatory expectation that salinity objectives be met through approved programs and monitoring networks.

Roles are clearly divided but intentionally collaborative, which is why the instrument is a cooperative agreement rather than a simple grant. GWD is responsible for managing the RTMP implementation within the GRCD and for operating and maintaining roughly 50 existing monitoring stations that measure flow volume and salinity. GWD must report on how water and salt move into, through, and out of the wetland complex, including drainage patterns. Reclamation anticipates substantial involvement, providing real-time management support and helping develop the RTMP framework for salt and boron compliance. Reclamation's side includes planning support, data management, decision support tools, and oversight/review of monitoring and pilot study work plans, with an explicit emphasis on multi-agency collaboration.

The opportunity is structured as a single expected award with an award ceiling of $1,048,791, posted July 24, 2017, with an original closing date of August 7, 2017. It is listed as discretionary and uses a cooperative agreement funding instrument. The eligible applicant category shown is county governments, but the narrative is written around awarding directly to GWD as the recipient/grantee, reflecting the stated intent to sole-source the work.

A major element of the announcement is the single-source justification based on unique qualifications and the fact that the work is a logical follow-on to an existing monitoring effort already underway in GRCD. The justification argues that GWD has built specialized site knowledge and operational familiarity through prior responsibilities and through consultants involved in the RTMP-related design and data acquisition processes. That experience includes local engineering and environmental context such as geology, hydrogeology, and channel morphology, along with practical experience managing irrigation scheduling and river/wetland operations. The notice states that another entity could not replicate that expertise without investing significant time to learn the system and re-create the working knowledge already developed, and it points to existing collaboration among GWD, Reclamation, USFWS, CDFG, the Lower San Joaquin River Committee, and CVSALTS stakeholders.

The deliverables are straightforward but important for both compliance and long-term program adoption. First, GWD must produce annual reporting that documents the quantity and quality (salt load) of water entering and leaving the GRCD, including both delivered water and drainage. Second, the final product is a comprehensive report covering the volume and salt load of water entering, circulating within, and leaving the GRCD. Beyond those written outputs, the project has a practical regulatory target: positioning the monitoring network for approval by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board as an official Real Time Monitoring Network identified in the Salt and Boron TMDL framework for the Lower San Joaquin River. That approval matters because it connects the pilot monitoring network to recognized compliance pathways and could support wider adoption of the RTMP approach.

The benefits described are intentionally multi-purpose. On the water quality side, the project aims to reduce salt loading to the LSJR by improving timing and management of discharges, which supports meeting salinity objectives at Vernalis and downstream. On the operations side, real-time data can help minimize spills, improve water conservation, and potentially reduce demands on existing federal water supply facilities by making wetland deliveries and drainage management more efficient. On the ecological side, better control of water quantity and quality supports habitat restoration and management, particularly for the seasonal wetlands that are nationally important wintering areas for migratory waterfowl. The monitoring network also improves understanding of the dynamics of the Grassland ecosystem, which can translate into better habitat diversity and better-informed wetland management decisions.

Finally, the statutory authority ties the work to long-standing federal commitments in the Central Valley. The cooperative agreement is anchored in the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (Public Law 102-575), including Section 3406(b)(3) related to instream flow acquisition and management supporting plans like VAMP and the San Joaquin River Agreement, and Section 3407(e), which allows funding to non-federal entities that can implement restoration and environmental actions efficiently. It also cites additional authority under P.L. 86-488 and the CALFED Bay-Delta Authorization Act (Public Law 108-361, Title I, Section 103(d)(2)(D)), emphasizing the Secretary of the Interior's role in coordinating with entities that discharge to the San Joaquin River to reduce salinity concentrations in line with TMDL deadlines. In practical terms, the funding is meant to help prove out a real-time, data-driven approach to salinity management that can be used by wetland and water managers and recognized by regulators as a credible compliance tool.

• The Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Cooperation To Meet Water Salinity Objectives At Vernalis" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.512.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 24, 2017.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 07, 2017. (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 $1,048,791.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: County governments.

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