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Department of the Interior – Bureau of Land Management Alaska Environmental Quality and Protection L21AS00538

  • Granting Agency: Bureau of Land Management (BLM),
  • Appropriation Amount: $80,000
  • Grant Amount: Award Ceiling $80,000, Award Floor $5,000, no match
  • Announcement Date: June 8, 2021
  • Closing Date: July 8, 2021

L21AS00538 Full Announcement
15.236 Attach-ments A and B (1)

Purpose:
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and its cooperative government and nongovernmental conservation partners, mitigate hazards to protect public health and safety, and restore watersheds for resources, recreation, fish, wildlife and domestic animals, and return lands to productive uses including, but not limited to, recreation, fish and wildlife habitat, and preservation of historical/cultural resources. Extractive industry activities of the past, including both underground and surface mining and oil and gas drilling, have left degraded watersheds on public lands throughout (State). Unreclaimed sites pose an environmental threat to groundwater, surface water and soil as well as create a risk to the health and safety of public land users.

Eligible Expenditures:

  • Identify and prioritize abandoned mines and orphaned wells that most affect at-risk resources and functioning ecosystems.
  • Prioritize orphaned well site physical safety closure projects in a manner that is centrally focused on achieving cost-savings.
  • Develop methods to reclaim and restore sites impacted by past mining and/or
  • Reclaim abandoned mine lands to productive uses including, but not limited to, recreation, fish and wildlife habitat, and preservation of historical/cultural
  • Reduce inventory of unreclaimed abandoned mines and orphaned
  • Reduce liabilities by eliminating or reducing risks posed by abandoned mines and orphaned wells
  • Reduce environmental degradation caused by abandoned mines and orphaned wells.
  • Establish partnerships, where possible, with States, local governments, Tribes, and voluntary environmental and citizen groups to pool resources and expertise to address abandoned
  • Integrate abandoned mine land support into land use planning
  • Apply the “polluter pays” principle applied to achieve cost avoidance/cost recovery for funding AML projects wherever possible
  • Assure that remediation actions are effective and that lessons learned through post- project monitoring and study benefit risk- and pollution-reducing efforts
  • Educate the public about the potential dangers posed by abandoned mines and the actions the BLM takes to address those
  • Provide public outreach and education to interested stakeholders about the potential dangers posed by abandoned mines and orphan wells.

Eligible Applicants:
County governments
Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
State governments
Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
Private institutions of higher education
Independent school districts
City or township governments
Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
Special district governments
Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)