Cruise Ship Impact

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This announcement is to provide public notice of the National Park Service (NPS), intention to fund a project continuation for the following project with University of Alaska Fairbanks under a Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) program. CESUs are partnerships that provide research, technical assistance, and education. The project funding is increased by $58,000 to add an additional UAF research Professional. This is a continuation of an existing agreement, number P11AC90465 ending on September 30, 2015. The total project funding is $293,873.00. STATUTORY AUTHORITY: Agreements Concerning Cooperative Research and Training on NPS Resources (16 U.S.C. § 1a-2(j)): The Secretary may enter into agreements with public or private educational institutions, States and their political subdivisions, for the purpose of developing adequate, coordinated, cooperative research and training programs concerning the resources of the National Park System, and pursuant to such agreements, to accept from and make available to the cooperator such technical and support staff, financial assistance for mutually agreed upon research projects, supplies and equipment, facilities, and administrative services relating to cooperative research units as the Secretary deems appropriate. STATEMENT OF JOINT OBJECTIVES/PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN: The purpose of this agreement is to collaboratively work with University of Alaska Anchorage, Department of Atmospheric Sciences to apply the modified WRF/Chem model to southeast Alaska coastal and ocean national parks and wilderness areas. This effort will have two general components. The first component will include set up of the model over the southeastern Alaska pants and wilderness areas and develop an emissions inventory from cruise ships. Simulations will be run to test the mode¿s capacity to capture local fluctuations in weather, and examine the impacts from cruise ship emissions by comparing model results from simulations with (SEM) and without (REF) cruise-ship emissions from recent meteorological conditions for the length of the cruise season (May-Sept). The second component will extend the investigations to simulate conditions under a suit of scenarios that permit a better understanding of how the impacts to air quality will vary with (1) future regulations in fuel quality, (2) existing regulations of ship speed, via unregulated cruise schedules or in response to specific park regulations, (3) cruise-ship entry quotas into Glacier Bay, and (4) future changes in climate. SINGLE-SOURCE JUSTIFICATION: Department of the Interior Policy (505 DM 2) requires a written justification which explains why competition is not practicable for each single-source award . The National Park Service did not solicit full and open competition for this award based the following criteria: Continuation of agreement P11AC90465. Technical contact information:Michael Bower, michael_bower@nps.gov, National Park Service, Alaska Region, End of FOA

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