Recovery.gov - Track the Money

Habitat Restoration:
NOAA will support projects that will result in on-the-ground restoration of marine and coastal habitat (including Great Lakes habitat) that are aligned with the objectives of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Restoration includes, but is not limited to, activities that contribute to the return of degraded or altered marine, estuarine, coastal, and freshwater (diadromous fish) habitats to a close approximation of their function prior to disturbance. Habitat restoration activities that produce significant ecological habitat features to create buffers or “green infrastructure” that serve to protect coastal communities from sea level rise, coastal storms and flooding, or that provide adaptation to climate change are also considered restoration under this program. Marine and coastal habitat restoration types, and associated activities, that will receive priority for restoration funding consideration are:
• Projects that seek to restore habitat to recover threatened or endangered species or benefit species of concern;
• Fish passage;
• Hydrologic/Tidal reconnection;
• Shellfish restoration;
• Coral recovery;
• Coastal resiliency;
• Habitat adaptation;
• Diadromous fish habitat;
• Marine debris removal; and
• Restoration of Great Lakes habitats within Areas of Concern (AOC).

Environmental Reviews and Consultations:
NOAA will hire short-term staff to conduct the interagency environmental consultations necessary to implement ARRA projects and reduce the existing backlog.

Vessel Maintenance and Repair:
The ARRA funding will involve industrial ship repair, renovations, and new equipment installations for multiple NOAA ships. These projects will extend service life, address issues of obsolescence, reduce potential for Hazmat asbestos exposure to NOAA Wage Mariner employees, and reduce the backlog of deferred maintenance work on the NOAA fleet.

The activities involved are primarily shipyard industrial work in private shipyards in various regions of the U.S. Depending on the successful bidders competing for award of the contracts, it can be anticipated that these ARRA funded projects will create work for shipyards from New England to the Gulf Coast, West Coast and Hawaii and suppliers nationwide. The shipyards used by NOAA are small businesses that will also benefit from the additional work in the ARRA project.

Hydrographic Survey Backlog:
NOAA will manage seven fixed price task orders to acquire approximately 1,735 square nautical miles of hydrographic survey data. The surveys will provide data to improve nautical chart products.

NOAA will also fund contract support to provide data validation services capable of handling the increased water level data that will be submitted by the hydrographic contractors; collect and compile approximately 8,600 statute miles of new shoreline data from existing aerial imagery and update NOAA Nautical Charts; and improve the public’s access to key hydrographic data by creating new capabilities for access to archived hydrographic data.

NOAA will also accelerate development of a data transformation software tool that integrates bathymetry and typographic data into a single streamlined web application, and make it available to the public. In addition, NOAA will develop a web-based water level data processing program to improve processing efficiencies.

NOAA will use existing internal controls and processes to monitor and evaluate Recovery Act projects. For the grants and acquisitions financial processes, we will conduct separate testing (based on OMB circular A-123 Appendix A) on Recovery Act funds to determine if proper internal controls are in place and being followed. NOAA will also conduct a separate FFMIA program review on ARRA funded programs to determine if the awarding and monitoring of grants and acquisitions are in accordance with the Act and other legal requirements, and ensure good internal controls practices are being used.

To ensure compliance, the following projects are taking these additional steps:

Habitat Restoration:
NOAA will implement a monitoring and evaluation approach for restoration projects, which will include recipient-level monitoring (short-term, output-based) and NOAA monitoring (longer-term, outcome-based) of a small number of ARRA projects. NOAA works with applicants during negotiation of cooperative agreements to include metrics for monitoring success. Negotiated metrics are selected based on guidance from NOAA’s volumes of science-based monitoring and guidance from OMB on tracking jobs. These short-term metrics are indicators of outcome-based success.

Environmental Reviews and Consultations:
NOAA’s Environmental Consultations will evaluate program progress by tracking:
• number of people hired to conduct consultations
• training of staff in the consultation process within 90-180 days of hire
• on-time completion rate of ARRA-related consultations within statutory timelines

Vessel Maintenance and Review:
NOAA will have onsite project engineers who are familiar with the vessel and contract requirements, and are fully qualified to monitor contract and contractor performance during the execution phase. The contractors will report progress weekly against a detailed schedule for each contract line item. The project engineers will be delegated COR duties and be required to monitor and report physical progress to the assigned contracting officer before payments are authorized and invoices processed.

Hydrographic Survey Backlog:
Activity managers will monitor progress through monthly progress reports submitted by contractors and regularly report activity progress to senior NOAA officials. An up-front risk assessment will be performed to identify risk areas and mitigation strategies and monitoring methods to ensure that timely action is taken on any activity that is not meeting its projected metrics.

Transparency
NOAA will review and analyze all project planning, milestones, and metrics to ensure approved Recovery Act projects can be appropriately executed within both the parameters of the Act and Administration. All acquisition announcements will be in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and ARRA requirements. In addition, NOAA is taking an active role in the development of systems to ensure compliance with the reporting and requirements of the Act and OMB guidance.

To ensure compliance, the following projects are taking these additional steps:

Habitat Restoration:
To be transparent in awarding ARRA funding, NOAA is using a competitive grants solicitation to award ARRA restoration funds. Criteria for applications were clearly defined in the Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) announcement.

All recipients are required to submit quarterly progress reports that track program specific information to track restoration project success. NOAA monitors project implementation through technical monitoring; and oversight of cooperative agreements with federal program officers. Information on all projects is tracked in existing information management systems (e.g., Grants Online, Restoration Center Database (RCDB)) that allow NOAA to track information at the recipient and award level.

Environmental Reviews and Consultations:
To monitor program performance and provide transparency, NOAA will use contract vehicles that have already been awarded under an open competitive process, and provide public access to completed environmental compliance documents.

Vessel Maintenance and Repair:
This project consists of several contracts which will be advertised in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and ARRA requirements. Contracts will contain ARRA clauses in order to provide transparency to the public of how award decisions are made and the resulting benefits. The process will provide broad opportunity to many different contractors to compete for NOAA ship repair work.

Hydrographic Survey Backlog:
As required by ARRA, pre-solicitation notices will be posted on FedBizOpps (FBO) for all contract actions. Also as required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation, contract awards will be reported to the Federal Procurement Data System (Next Generation) (FPDS-NG). Further, NOAA will provide program plans, contract award data, and cost and performance information for posting on the central ARRA website and NOAA’s ARRA website.

Accountability
NOAA has established an ARRA Accountability and Oversight Review Board to ensure requirements of the ARRA and OMB Guidance are met. Members of the Board have a broad level of experience in management including satellite acquisitions, Information Technology, and grants management. This Board will review and guide all projects on a monthly basis, as well as focus on managing the risks associated with the expedited execution of recovery projects.

There are no Federal Infrastructure Investments associated with Habitat Restoration, Environmental Reviews and Consultations, and Hydrographic Survey Backlog.

For Vessel Maintenance and Repair, several work items in these contracts improve energy efficiency and reduce or eliminate environmental impacts. The boiler system replacement for the Rainier provides newer, more efficient boilers with modern automated controls. New Ship Service Diesel Generator (SSDG) replacement for the Oregon II provides EPA-compliant engines that will meet current emission standards. The Hi`ialakai will replace its antiquated wastewater system with a new zero-discharge system necessary for operating in environmentally sensitive protected areas designated as no discharge zones.