NOAA Great Lakes Fish Habitat Restoration Partnership Grants: Historical FY 2027 Cycle

NOAA Great Lakes Fish Habitat Restoration Partnership Grants: Historical FY 2027 Cycle

This page is a historical reference for NOAA Fisheries’ Great Lakes Fish Habitat Restoration Partnership Grants cycle that considered projects for federal fiscal year 2027. The application deadline was September 4, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. That deadline has passed. NOAA’s published schedule and the linked federal notice list no later deadline for this funding opportunity, and NOAA says this announcement remains open only until 2026, subject to funds. NOAA has not announced a later cycle on the official opportunity page. There is no currently open application date to use from this notice.

The program offered federal financial and technical assistance through competitive cooperative agreements for projects that restore habitats supporting native Great Lakes fish. It was aimed at organizations able to plan and deliver restoration work, coordinate partners and permits, manage federal funds, and measure ecological results. This archive records the closed cycle’s published terms so readers can understand its scope; it is not a live call for proposals. Before preparing a future application, applicants should locate a newly published NOAA notice rather than submit against the expired announcement.

The official NOAA opportunity page remains the source for the program description and its published eligibility. Its linked federal notice, NOAA-NMFS-HCPO-2024-28122, supplies the detailed terms for the closed solicitation. The notice named three annual due dates, ending with September 4, 2026, for projects expected to start approximately October 1, 2027. It did not set a later application date in the material currently published by NOAA.

Key details at a glance

The total and per-project figures refer to different things. The federal notice anticipated up to $12 million for the initial fiscal year and said estimates for subsequent fiscal years had not been determined. It anticipated typical federal awards of $500,000 to $6 million over one to three years, while allowing requests from $250,000 up to $30 million total over three years. The $30 million figure was a ceiling, not a promise that any one project would receive that amount. Any future solicitation may set different amounts.

What the grant is designed to support

The competition addresses the decline and fragmentation of fish habitat in the Great Lakes. NOAA identifies habitat degradation, pollution, oil spills, overfishing, and invasive species among the pressures affecting the system. The purpose is therefore broader than building a single shoreline feature. The proposed work should explain how a particular restoration action will improve habitat conditions for native fish and support the ecological functions of the Great Lakes basin.

NOAA describes several public and environmental benefits that selected projects may advance: stronger fisheries and coastal resources, improved water quality through coastal-wetland restoration, recreational opportunities, and greater resilience for Great Lakes communities. These benefits are useful framing points, but they do not replace a project-specific case. An applicant still needs to show what will change at the proposed site, for which species or habitat functions, on what schedule, and how the team will know whether the intervention worked.

The federal listing highlights two GLRI-aligned priority areas. One is Focus Area 1, Toxic Substances and Areas of Concern, including management actions in Areas of Concern. The other is Focus Area 4, Habitats and Species, including habitat restoration for native Great Lakes fish whose populations have been affected by degradation. A proposal can be more persuasive when it names the relevant priority, describes the site’s connection to it, and avoids claiming alignment that the work cannot document.

Who is eligible to apply

NOAA lists the following applicant categories as eligible:

• Institutions of higher education
• Nonprofit organizations
• Commercial or for-profit organizations
• U.S. territories
• State governments
• Local governments
• Native American tribal governments

The applicant may be located anywhere, but the proposed work must be inside the Great Lakes basin and within one of the eight eligible states. That rule makes geography a threshold issue. A national organization with a strong restoration record may apply, but it must identify a qualifying Great Lakes project rather than rely on experience from another watershed.

Individuals cannot apply directly. Federal agencies and federal employees are also not eligible applicants. NOAA specifically encourages federal agencies to work with states, nongovernmental organizations, municipal or county governments, and other eligible entities. If a federal scientist or program office is central to the project, the application should make that role a partnership or technical-support relationship rather than misidentify the federal entity as the grant applicant.

The page does not say that every eligible organization will be competitive. Eligibility only opens the door. The practical fit is strongest for an organization that controls or has documented access to a project site, understands the permitting and environmental-review path, can manage federal funds, and can assemble the ecological, engineering, community, and administrative expertise needed for a three-year award.

What a competitive project should demonstrate

Start with a clearly defined habitat problem. “Improve Great Lakes habitat” is too broad to carry a federal proposal. The application should identify the site or connected sites, the habitat condition that limits native fish or ecosystem function, the cause or causes that the project can address, and the restoration action that is feasible during the award period.

Then connect the action to outcomes. A credible theory of change might run from a hydrologic or shoreline intervention, through improved wetland or nearshore conditions, to better spawning, nursery, passage, refuge, or food-web function. The precise chain will vary by project. The important point is that the application should not stop at construction outputs. It should explain the ecological result those outputs are expected to produce.

NOAA’s restoration guidance emphasizes monitoring and evaluation. Useful plans include pre-implementation information where appropriate, quantitative or clearly defined targets, and measures that can be assessed after implementation. Depending on the project, evidence might include as-built surveys, habitat-area measurements, water-quality indicators, connectivity measures, or presence and absence of target species. Choose indicators that the team can actually collect, manage, and interpret within the proposed budget and schedule.

Community and tribal relationships also need substance. If the work affects public access, fishing, shoreline use, cultural resources, or local infrastructure, identify the people and institutions who will be involved. Do not treat a support letter as a substitute for a participation plan. Explain who helped shape the project, whose knowledge informs the design, how conflicts will be handled, and who will maintain the result after federal funding ends.

Application route in the closed cycle

The closed notice directed applicants to submit a complete standard NOAA financial-assistance package through Grants.gov. Each application had to include the applicable forms from the SF-424 family and comply with the notice’s narrative, budget, and attachment requirements. This is a record of the route required for that solicitation, not an invitation to submit now. The deadline was final for the announced cycle; the notice said late submissions would not be accepted for that deadline and could only be considered in subsequent fiscal years through the final September 4, 2026 deadline if funds were available. That final date has passed.

The notice required organizations to register in SAM.gov, obtain a Unique Entity Identifier, and complete Grants.gov and eRA Commons registrations before submission. It warned that registration could take six weeks or longer and that delays would not extend a deadline. Those details are useful historical context because they show the lead time NOAA expected for the closed competition. Anyone pursuing a future round should verify its own registration status and follow that round’s notice; requirements and systems can change.

For the archived cycle, a responsible submission workflow would have been:

1. Verify the applicant category and confirm that every proposed activity site was in the Great Lakes basin and one of the eight eligible states.
2. Read the complete NOAA notice NOAA-NMFS-HCPO-2024-28122, including its priorities, exclusions, application instructions, review criteria, and award conditions.
3. Confirm active SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and eRA Commons registrations for the correct legal entity, with the required UEI and authorized roles.
4. Shape the project around the notice’s eligible restoration purpose and, where applicable, the listed Areas of Concern or Lake Committee Environmental Priorities.
5. Assemble the narrative, work plan, federal forms, budget, monitoring approach, and requested supporting documentation according to that notice.
6. Check consistency across schedule, milestones, budget, permits, partner commitments, and measurable outcomes.
7. Submit before the announced cutoff and monitor Grants.gov for receipt and validation messages.

The old cycle’s deadline should not be copied into a new proposal calendar. The federal record and new notice, if NOAA issues one, would establish the valid due date and package requirements.

Timeline recorded for the historical cycle

NOAA’s published schedule for this announcement listed September 4, 2026 as the deadline for consideration in federal fiscal year 2027. The federal notice associated that round with projects starting approximately October 1, 2027. The same notice listed September 5, 2025 for projects starting approximately October 1, 2026, and the earlier application round for projects starting approximately October 1, 2025. The latter date is rendered differently in the NOAA schedule and the federal notice; that discrepancy does not affect the final, now-passed deadline documented here.

The NOAA listing described an award period of three years. The federal notice said multi-year awards were expected to be funded in annual increments for up to three years, subject to appropriations and project progress. A project schedule therefore needed to account for design, permits, procurement, seasonal construction windows, monitoring, reporting, and dependencies. NOAA did not guarantee a notification date or award start for the final cycle in the public schedule. The approximately October 1, 2027 start date was an expectation in the notice, not a confirmed award date for any individual applicant.

As of this page’s research date, the cycle has closed and NOAA has not posted a subsequent application deadline on the official program page. The annual wording in the notice described the three dates in that announcement; it should not be read as confirmation that NOAA will issue another round. The page is therefore marked as a historical reference and retains the final deadline as an archive date.

Materials described for the closed application cycle

The full notice was the authority for mandatory materials in this cycle. It called for a complete federal assistance package rather than a short expression of interest, including applicable SF-424 forms and the narrative components it specified. The list below is a planning summary of useful project evidence, not a substitute for a future notice’s required forms or attachments.

Preparation should also cover:

• A concise problem statement tied to a specific Great Lakes site or connected project area
• A site map and location information that make the eight-state and basin requirements easy to verify
• A work plan with milestones, responsible parties, dependencies, and a realistic three-year schedule
• A budget narrative that connects each cost to an activity and outcome
• A monitoring and evaluation plan with baseline information, targets, methods, and data-management responsibilities
• Evidence of landowner, site-control, partner, community, or tribal relationships as relevant to the project
• A permitting and environmental-compliance plan that identifies approvals, consultations, and sequencing risks
• Organizational qualifications and a clear explanation of who will manage federal funds and reporting
• Letters or other supporting documentation only where the notice requests them or where they establish a necessary project relationship

Keep claims proportional to evidence. If fish abundance has not been measured at the site, do not promise a precise population increase. State what baseline information exists, what the project will measure, and what inference will be reasonable after implementation. Reviewers can distinguish a well-designed measurement plan from a number chosen only to make a proposal look ambitious.

What the closed cycle asked reviewers to assess

For this cycle, a clear application would have connected need, action, mechanism, measure, and benefit. Reviewers needed to understand the project without reconstructing it from appendices. A project map and work plan could reinforce the same logic and keep the proposed activities consistent.

The notice prioritized contributions to GLRI Focus Area 1, concerning toxic substances and Areas of Concern, and Focus Area 4, concerning habitats and species. It also prioritized a subset of Lake Committee Environmental Priorities. A strong application would have documented the precise connection to a listed priority and to native fish, rather than relying on general regional statistics.

The budget was a credibility check: each major cost needed to support a work-plan activity, and each major activity needed a budget line. Staff time, contracted design or construction, equipment, travel, monitoring, data management, outreach, and indirect costs had to follow the notice. The Grants.gov record identified no cost-sharing or matching requirement for this opportunity.

A reviewer could reasonably look for the project’s biggest implementation risk: permitting, land access, seasonal construction, procurement, invasive-species control, community concerns, or monitoring capacity. The application needed to identify mitigation, a responsible person, and decision points. Acknowledging a real constraint and showing how the team would manage it made the schedule and outcomes more credible.

Lessons from the closed solicitation

A threshold error would have been proposing work outside the eligible geography. A project can have Great Lakes relevance and still fail the basin-and-state rule if the actual activity occurs elsewhere. Confirm each site before writing the narrative.

Applicants also needed to distinguish the $12 million anticipated for the initial fiscal year from the $30 million maximum request across three years. The federal notice described typical awards of $500,000–$6 million. The ceiling was not a likely award size, and estimates for later years were undetermined.

Late registration is also avoidable. SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and eRA Commons setup can involve organization administrators, not just the project director. Start early, verify that the correct legal entity is registered, and test the submission role before the final week.

A construction description without a monitoring plan would not have addressed NOAA’s interest in implementation monitoring and measurable habitat results. Similarly, community benefits needed to be grounded in named users, partners, or a stewardship arrangement that could make those benefits durable.

Finally, this archived notice must not be treated as proof of a new annual round. A future applicant would need a newly published NOAA page and notice, with its own deadline and attachments, before preparing a submission.

Frequently asked questions

Can an individual apply?

No. NOAA lists individuals as ineligible direct applicants. An individual researcher or community leader would need to work through an eligible organization such as a nonprofit, university, tribal government, or local government.

Can a project be located outside the Great Lakes states if it benefits Great Lakes fish?

No. The official page says proposed work must be within the Great Lakes basin and within New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, or Minnesota.

Can a federal agency submit the application?

No. Federal agencies and federal employees are not eligible applicants. NOAA encourages federal agencies to work with eligible partners instead.

Is matching funding required?

The Grants.gov record identifies no cost-sharing or matching requirement for this opportunity. A future solicitation could set different terms, so its own notice would control.

How much can one applicant request?

The notice anticipated typical federal awards of $500,000–$6 million over one to three years. It set a request minimum of $250,000 and a maximum of $30 million total over three years. Up to $12 million was anticipated for the initial fiscal year; estimates for later fiscal years had not been determined. These figures described the closed solicitation and are not a promise of future funding.

When were awards expected to begin?

The federal notice associated the final due date with projects starting approximately October 1, 2027. It did not promise an award to any applicant or publish a confirmed notification date for individual proposals. The estimated start date was a planning assumption, not a guarantee.

Official links and archive use

The NOAA Fisheries Great Lakes Fish Habitat Restoration Partnership Grants page is the official program page. It records the deadline, funding range, applicant classes, geography, application route, and cycle schedule. The page says the opportunity would remain open until 2026, contingent on funds, and lists the September 4, 2026 due date as its final schedule entry.

The federal notice, NOAA-NMFS-HCPO-2024-28122, is available through the official Grants.gov opportunity record. It gives the final due date, expected project start timing, award range, registration rules, eligible activities, submission requirements, and review criteria. NOAA’s Restoration Center applicant resources provide general application and award guidance; those resources do not reopen this closed competition.

Use this page to understand the prior competition’s published design and to compare it with a future notice if one appears. Do not submit an application or plan a current project around the expired deadline. NOAA Fisheries has not announced the next cycle on the official opportunity page checked for this archive, so no replacement date or funding amount is stated here. Verify all future details directly with NOAA and the corresponding federal notice.