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Padmini Das: Hello everyone. Welcome, to the, pre-request for proposal discussion for our 604(b) and 319 grants. We will start with an overview of the watershed Planning Program, and I would like to request Richard to give you that overview. Richard?

Richard Carey: All right, thank you, Padmini, and good morning, everyone. I'm Richard Carey, Director of MassDEP's Watershed Planning Program and I wanted to give a brief overview of our program.

So, the mission of the Watershed Planning Program is to protect, enhance, and restore the quality and value of the waters of the Commonwealth. We're a statewide program with five sections that each have a different technical focus under the Clean Water Act.

And you can see our five sections here on the slide. So we have the Surface Water Quality Standards Section, the Water Quality Monitoring Section, Data Management and Water Quality Assessment Section, Total Maximum Daily Load Section, and the focus of our meeting today, the Non-Point Source Management Section.

And we work with other MassDEP programs and state environmental agencies to secure the environmental, recreational, and public health benefits of clean water for all people of the Commonwealth. So, next slide, please.

Okay, so on this slide, I just want to give you a little bit more information on our program. So, on the right, we have what we call our Watershed Planning Program Water Wheel. So this just shows how the five sections are organized and how we interact. We have interdependent workflows across all of our five sections. We are a data-centric program, as you can see from the water wheel here. And on the left, this is just brief information on the technical focus areas for each section, so you can see what we do for each section. I just want to focus right now on the last section right here. So, for the non-point source management section, the focus is to protect healthy waters and restore impaired waters through non-point source management grants, and we're going to get into that, in the following slides for both the 604(b) grant and the 319 grant.

So, thank you very much, and I'll now, give it back to Padmini.


Padmini Das: Okay, hello, everyone. So… thank you for joining the Pre-RFP Session today, and in this session, it is my pleasure to present a brief overview of our team, what we do, and some key information about the resources that we have that will help you to... Just give me a second, I'm having some… Okay. Sorry about that.

So in this session, our goal is to provide you with an overview of some of the helpful resources and the tools that we have that might be helpful to prepare proposals.

So, before taking a deeper dive on it, I would love to give you a quick overview about our team. We belong to MassDEP's Bureau of Water Resources, Division of Watershed Management, and in the Watershed Planning Program, as Richard mentioned. And now I would like you to meet my small, but mighty team who makes the magic happen. So, Meghan?


Meghan Selby: Good morning, I'm Meghan Selby, I coordinate the 604(b) grant program.


Padmini Das: Malcolm?


Malcolm Harper: Good morning, everyone. My name is Malcolm Harper, and I coordinate the 319 grant program.


Padmini Das: And you already met Judy. Judy?


Judy Rondeau: Good morning again, everyone. Judy Rondeau, Non-Point Source Outreach Coordinator.


Padmini Das: And, we also are lucky to have two temporary staff at this point who is helping us in the Non-Point Source Management Section. Do we have Annika?


Annika Lackner: Yes, hi everyone, I'm Annika, I'm the intern this summer with the Non-Point Source Section.


Padmini Das: And Nicole, I know, is in the field. She is helping us in our Water Quality Monitoring Section, as well as Non-Point Source Management Section. And I would also like you to meet Dr. Robert Smith, who manages another grant program that is also part of the Watershed Planning Program. Bob?


Robert Smith: Yeah, hi everybody. So, my apologies, we lost internet here for a second, so I'm back on, if I missed anything specific, if I repeat it, but I'm the Water Quality Monitoring Grants Grant Administrator. I am the External Monitoring Data Coordinator in the Data Management and Water Quality Assessment section. The Water Quality Monitoring Grant Program is for water quality monitoring. The specific goal is to assist external partners with collecting external data that we can use for our water quality assessments for activities under the Clean Water Act.

Padmini Das: Thank you, everyone. So, as Richard showed you, our Water Wheel, which is the functional, diagram that shows the functions of WPP's other sections, and, WPP's other sections work is critical for identifying the non-point source impairment, so, what we do is that we, restore and the impaired waters, and protect the healthy waters. And, we are… we have a 5-year non-point source management plan that is approved by EPA, and this management plan includes our non-point source mitigation strategies. And, this RFP is the first RFP… RFPs under the 2025-2029 NPS Management Plan.

So, the Non-Point Source management is a statewide task. Through the Clean Water Act, we are given the responsibility to manage statewide non-point source pollution. Unlike point source mitigation, which is done through regulatory actions and enforcement, non-point source mitigation is voluntary. So it is done through participation from our communities and so outreach is a very critical component of the work that we do and one of our long-term goal is establish a non-source partnership with other grant programs and both federal and non-federal, like state-funded grant programs, that has non-resource benefits and co-benefits. And, we started this effort, but this is a long-term goal, so that statewide NPS projects and pollutant load reduction, specifically tracking the pollutant load reduction, would be our goal through this effort.

As I mentioned, it's a voluntary activity. Inspire Our Communities for NPS mitigation is the core of our work. And, we understand that for voluntary activities, it's very important to have the proper resources, and that's why we manage the two grant, grants. One is 604(b), which is Water Quality Management Planning Grant and then 319, which is Non-Point Source Implementation Grant. So, both of these grants provide technical and financial resources for NPS mitigation.

Now, I would give you a quick overview of the two grants RFPs for the 2026, for this year. For 604(b), the eligible entities are municipalities, regional planning agencies, Tribes, conservation districts, councils of government, counties, interstate agencies. So, it's either governmental or quasi-governmental agencies. So, please make sure that you note this, that the lead grantee of the 604(b) application has to be one of these. For example, if a watershed association sends a 604(b) application, we cannot even review that because that's not eligible. They are not eligible as a lead grantee. However, they could be a partner of any of these entities. So, it's a critical point for the 604(b) and to note that eligibility.

So we have a base funding, which is basically a regular, year-to-a-year funding that we receive from EPA. Currently, we are also receiving the IIJA funding from the 2022-2026. IIJA stands for Infrastructure Investment and Job Act. And under this RFP, we are giving, like, 4 pots of funding. So, 24 base and IIJA, and 25 base and IIJA fundings. So, this year, our overall 604(b) - our funding is much bigger than our normal RFPs. We also are adding a very small amount of program funds to support the agricultural NPS coordination, and for that particular one, the eligible entities would be organizations with statewide agricultural capacity building experience.

So, overall, we are allocating around $1.8 million, funding under the 604(b), which is our highest so far, and I do not envision that being repeated in the future, so, please, take the most advantage of this round.

And we will walk you through of the type of projects that we are seeking. We used 604(b) grants as a capacity building for the 319 grant.

And for the 319 grant, the eligible entities are wider. It's any public or private organization and interstate agency. So for this one, a watershed association is very welcome to submit the grant as the lead grantee. So that is the difference between the 319 and 604(b). So this round, because we have a bigger 604(b) pot, we are going to use the entire 319 funding for implementation projects, and we are not going to have any non-implementation projects.
Which, in the previous years, we used a small part of program fund to support capacity building. So please note that this year, the entire capacity building is going to be done through 604(b) funding.

The implementation projects, are implementation of best management practices, so we need to report the pollutant reduction loads for each of these projects to EPA, and that is a very important and probably the most important deliverables is the pollutant reduction loads. The implementation project is implementation of a MassDEP-approving 9-element watershed-based plan, so your project has to be part of a MassDEP-approved 9-element watershed-based plan.

Now, so this is a pre-requirement. If you are… if you do not have a MassDEP-approved 9-element watershed-based plan, but you are close, or you have other plan, and you think you can quickly get your project into a plan and get it approved through us. You are welcome to submit a 319 proposal, but what we need to do is that we need to have your watershed-based plan done and approved before your contract starts. So, just wanted to mention that. But those of you who has a MassDEP-approved watershed-based plan, they are definitely going to get competitive advantage in the proposal review.

So, three types of projects under the implementation projects, restoration of impaired waters, protection of healthy waters, and restoration of nitrogen-impacted coastal waters, which I will share a little bit more details, later. And, this time, it's all our project fund from our 2025 and 2026, 319 allocation that we have received from EPA. It's close to $2.5 million.

And, 604(b) has no match, and as you may know that 319 has a 40% non-federal match requirement. And historically, we have been collecting that match, project-specific, from each of the applicants. Last RFP cycle is the first cycle when we were able to gather that match at the state level, and we waived that match as a core financial, capacity building initiative for our communities. And the response was really great. We got a lot of proposals and very high-quality proposals, as well as many proposals from first-time applicants who'd never applied to 319 Grants because of this match requirement.

So… and this match… gathering the match is… has to be done every time when we get the award, so it is, it is not a continuation, but I am happy to share this news with you that we were able to collect the match this round as well. And thanks to our Clean Water SRF, group, who, one of the Clean Water SRF projects we have, we are using as the match, and I also would like to thank our EPA Region 1 partners, who actually, did, help us a lot, in approving that. So, really thankful to our Clean Water a startup team, and I see all the excitement. Thank you so much, this is great.

And so, this is what we are announcing, that we are going to waive the match requirement for all awardees in this funding cycle as well. So, thank you for sharing your, excitement on this. That makes us, happy. It is really a hard job to get this match every time, but, you know, it's just that it is one of the most rewarding initiatives. So, as please note that this waiver is not going to, like, continue. It will always depend on funding availability and eligible project availability that can be considered as matched. So although proposals under this RFP will not need to provide match, but voluntary inclusion of match with cash or in-kind services will provide applicants a competitive advantage in this selection process. So, thank you so much for sharing your excitement, hearing this news. That made me inspired even more.

So, okay, with that happy note I'm going to give… share a little bit about our current Non-Point Source Management Plan, because if you align your proposal with the goals and focus of the Non-Point Source Management Plan, then your proposal will receive the competitive advantage through the selection criteria.

So, overall, our goal of the Management Plan is non-point source mitigation. The theme was very carefully selected, and it's close to our heart. It is meeting communities where they are, understanding their needs and, you know, creating our strategies so that we can help everyone the most.

The goals that are, aligned with the current federal guidelines are these five: restore impaired waters, protect healthy waters, build community capacity, identify impaired and healthy waters, and identify and leverage partnership. And, I also are mentioning where this, you can find this information from, so this is Section 2 of the Management Plan.

Another thing is very, important is, and we did it for the first time, are the focus categories. So, the focus categories are non-point source categories and I will tell you why they're considered as focus categories. So, 3 focus categories under this plan: developed land, septic systems, and agriculture.

So, how we came up with these three categories are, let's talk a little bit about that. These categories… categorization and subcategorization is done for the first time based on our IR data, so we use the 2022 IR data. And these are the 11 categories, and all the categories are, you know, they are all eligible for the funding. We'll just… on the focus categories would just get a prioritization point. So, for example, developed land, from our data, what we found that developed land has the most contribution, followed by septic systems and agriculture, making them three as our major categories, and all others are minor categories.

And most of the three focus categories have, like, partnership goal that is beyond 604(b) and 319 program. We are planning an NPS Roundtable with our partners, focusing on the focus categories, and we are going to organize in-person annual non-point source symposium dedicated to each focus category.

So, for the RFP, the focus categories, if your impairment is coming from any of these three focus categories, then it will get some prioritization points in our selection criteria.

So… similarly, with this geographical focus area that we are… we named it as the Nitrogen-Impacted Coastal Waters in our Non-Point Source Management Plan, which includes the Natural Resource Nitrogen Sensitive Area in the Cape Cod that is under the Title V regulation, but it is not just that but it is beyond that. We also identify other areas which is in yellow in the map, which are part of this geographical focus area where additional area, which is eligible for non-point source funding for nitrogen reductions.

So… let's talk about some of the highlights of the two RFPs.

For 604(b), the main prioritization is watershed-based planning. So, development of MassDEP-approved watershed-based plan is our priority under this RFP, and it could be done through different mechanisms for different waters, like impaired or healthy waters, could be done through regional or state NPS Coordinators program, and earlier it was run by 319 program funds. This year onwards, this is going to be 604(b)-funded. Nitrogen-Impacted Coastal Waters, the planning component, as well as the NWQI waters. So, all of these areas and waters, the watershed-based plans are going to receive priority.

And active and comprehensive community engagement, which I am going to talk a little bit more later, is a central component of our proposal, so I would definitely encourage everyone to detail your active and comprehensive community engagement initiatives in your proposal.

For 319, it's also a multi-year RFP, as I mentioned. I talked about the match. All projects are going to be implementation projects, so we are not going to have any non-implementation projects in… under this round. Active and community... comprehensive community engagement is key for 319 Grants as well.

Please check whether your 319 grant proposal would require the Build America, Buy America requirement. There are some waivers, I would highly encourage you to go to the EPA website and check the available waivers. If the waivers, if it is not, for your project, then you have to comply with BABA.

The RFP is much more streamlined this time. It is much more shorter, because a lot of supplementary information that we have, we incorporated it into our web page, and they are linked into the RFP. So, please make sure you go to the links and explore those links and see all the supplementary materials before you... while you work on your proposal.

The eligibility form, this is something that we incorporated last time, and this form has 10 points, as you complete it. So, last time we received one or two proposals which didn't do the eligibility form and they lost the 10 points, so please make sure you do the eligibility form. It is basically a tool that will help you understand the complicated, you know, eligibility of the 319, so please do that form. The form will guide you, based on the project details that you entered in the form.

And I would highly encourage you to use our capacity building tool for non-point source management that we developed, which is called INSPIRE. It's Ideas for Non-point Source Projects, Informational Resources, and Examples. So, this is a tool where you can find… it's like a one-stop shop, where you can find all the GIS layers that might be helpful for you to develop your project. Not only that, it has all of our projects, past projects. You can find a summary of each of our projects that is completed. You can also find our completed watershed-based plan, and it will link… it will provide you a link to get to the whole plan as well. So there is a lot of help that the INSPIRE can do while you are working on your proposal, so we are highly encouraging you to use this tool.

So, in the Management Plan, we added more pollutants, and traditional non-point source pollutants, which are our nutrients, pathogens, and sediments, and nutrients includes both nitrogen as well as phosphorus, and both are critical for us. So, while we have, like, geographical focus area for nitrogen does not mean that we will provide any less emphasis or any less support for phosphorus mitigation. You know, it comes… it is a very critical goal for us.

So, nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, pathogens, and sediments. And what we included is chloride, emerging contaminants like PFAS, microplastics, 6PPD quinone, and pharmaceuticals, and personal care products. And then there is other NPS pollutants are organized in, in, like it is shown here. And all of these can come from the 11 non-point source categories that we listed.

I want to walk you through our NPS roadmap, and the reason we have created this roadmap is for our theme, meeting the communities where they are. So you will see that wherever you are, there are available resources, financial, as well as tools that can help you with your non-point source journey. Let's consider this as a road or a river, I would like to say. And this box lists our fundings, and this is a toolbox. Let's see what are the tools that can help in this journey.

So, ideal starting point is when you know that the water… your target water body, what is… what is it in the integrated list of waters, whether it is impaired or it is healthy?

And, you can find the, our IR link with INSPIRE, so INSPIRE can help there as a tool. But we also realized that not all our water bodies are in the list, so, in that case, you can still get the support through the water quality monitoring under a QAPP, and 604(b) grant can support that. And then you need to submit the data in the Watershed Planning Program's external data portal, and if you're not familiar with QAPP, it's the Quality Assurance Program Plan, and that has to be a MassDEP-approved QAPP. You can develop the QAPP with the 604(b) funding as well.

Now, once you submit the data, of course, it doesn't get into the integrated list right away. It has, it's time that we need to check the quality of the data, so, so that is a timely process, but it will, you know, if everything meets the requirement, it will help in the integrated, list development.

So, if you know that whether your water is healthy, then healthy watershed production planning is the next step. 604(b) can help, we have a watershed-based planning tool developed for developing watershed-based plans. 

Resiliency planning means, like, in high, storm events, how, you know, your BMPs, what are the adaptive management for your BMPs? That's the resiliency planning. You can use the design standard and guidance provided by RMAT for that, and implementation of Healthy Watershed Protection Plan can be supported by 319.

Healthy waters, oh, and also, like, other than Inspire, where you see all the project details, you can also, have… we also have a… called Mass Clean Water Toolkit, which has 126 BMP, so please use that tool for your planning. And that's how you are protecting the healthy water. 

For the impaired waters, watershed-based plan, a nine-element watershed-based plan needs to be developed and get approved by us. And, you can do further planning with 604(b), to make the project shovel-ready, do the resiliency planning as well. We used 319 capacity building fund to support NPS coordinators, programs, regional, and agricultural coordination.

So, implementation of best management practices, you can use, that is our major goal for the 319 implementation fund. You can use the tools, INSPIRE, the Mass Clean Water Toolkit, as well as the Mass Stormwater Handbook. All of these are very useful tools for implementation projects. And that's how we reached to our goal of restoring the impaired waters.

For this RFP, as I mentioned, that we are not going to use the 319 fund. We are going to be using 604(b) fund to support the NPS Coordinators Program. And, last but not the least, the project should be incorporating active and comprehensive community engagement from start to finish. So, this round, we are going to have the 604(b) for all capacity building, and 319 for all implementation.

So, moving on, just wanted to show you a quick glimpse of the watershed-based plans that are completed and MassDEP approved. So, this diagram itself shows the scope of the work.

And we are hoping that this 604(b) funding is going to help us make this map look much fuller. So if you are wondering what these 9 elements are, I'm encouraging you to go to Section 4. We have developed images, that will be helpful for you to understand these 9 elements simply. Judy is going to provide more guidelines later on the watershed based planning. You will also find the alternative watershed-based plans in there as well. And I definitely would like to mention here is that this Plan, for the first time, has incorporated flexibilities for the tribes, the federally recognized tribes, especially. So, if the federally recognized tribes has a Tribal Implementation Plan that is EPA approved, you do not need to do any more planning. You can apply to 319 implementation dollars for support your BMPs, and this is State 319 fund, so this is not, this is in addition to, the, tribal 319 fund that tribes can directly ask from EPA. So, we have opened the state 319 fund for the tribe, and this is, under this RFP, we will be welcoming proposals.

For the restoration of nitrogen-impacted coastal waters, what we can fund through 604(b) and 319, 604(b), under planning, ambient water quality sampling, monitoring data analysis, modeling of nitrogen reduction scenario, development of Comprehensive Watershed Management Plans (CWMP), development of Targeted Watershed Management Plan (TWMP), putting CWMPs and TWMPs to nine-element watershed-based plans, that is an important component right there for us, and development of resilient implementation plans.

Eligible project components for 319 must result in nitrogen load reductions and can include best management practices like installation of enhanced, innovative/alternative nitrogen-reducing septic systems, installation of permeable reactive barriers, and restoration of wetland areas. These are just few examples. This is not an exhaustive list.

So active and comprehensive community engagement. What's active? What's active? Let's go beyond flyers, let's go beyond unidirectional, information sharing. And one of our major goals for comprehensive community engagement is NPS mitigation for all.

So, comprehensive meaning it should reach every community and everyone in each community. So, any efforts facilitating participation of all members in your community is very welcome. If you are doing any citizen science and youth engagement, that we would love to support that, and we would want you to detail these in your proposal.

These are some of our examples, from youth engagement by Mystic River Watershed Association in one of their previous projects, and this project was such an inspiration because they have involved, you know, children of different age, and then, like, elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and 
you can see some of the photo with excitement, and we all know that they are the, they are the heart and the ... of the community, right? So, the energy of this kind of projects are infectious, so any kind of youth engagement that you could think of through your NPS projects, we highly welcome that.

So, continuing with NPS mitigation for all, we highly encourage you to use signages for all, signages that are relevant to your community. For example, recently, City of Framingham, for their 319 projects. This is the signage that they have created with 3 languages that are relevant to their community. 

Similar, to, like, Town of Braintree created this signage for an infiltration system installed through 319, and they have a signage with both English and Mandarin. So, depending on who your community is, you know, just anything that you would like to support to reach everyone, we will highly encourage that.
And we incorporated this as… this has really high points in the selection criteria. 20 to 25 points, you know, so, those projects are going to get priority.

Okay, so with that, I would like to thank you with this very sweet, you know, drawing, signage that, from the Mystic River Project, a drawing created by an elementary school student and see how simple the drawing is of fish with algae where fish are sad, and then the clean water where the fish is happy. I felt this is such an inspiration for us. It keeps us going on the tough days, and I know that, you are doing so much wonderful work at your end, and we would love to support. Just tell us how we can support you. Thank you.