Evaluating the Role(s) of the Butte Sink and Sutter Bypass for Butte Creek Spring-Run Chinook salmon and other Central Valley Juvenile Salmonid Populations | F19AS00078

Opportunity Information: Apply for F19AS00078

The grant opportunity titled "Evaluating the Role(s) of the Butte Sink and Sutter Bypass for Butte Creek Spring-Run Chinook salmon and other Central Valley Juvenile Salmonid Populations" is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funding action under the Department of the Interior, issued as a discretionary cooperative agreement (Funding Opportunity Number F19AS00078). It is structured as a Notice of Intent to award to the University of California, Davis, meaning the agency had already identified UC Davis as the intended recipient rather than running a broad open competition. The project falls under the natural resources category and is associated with CFDA number 15.678, with eligibility listed for public and state-controlled institutions of higher education. The opportunity was created on January 24, 2019, with an original closing date of January 28, 2019, and an award ceiling of $1,185,040.

The project was reviewed by the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) Core Team and selected because it aligns with CVPIA priorities and is expected to inform future watershed management decisions. It was also incorporated into the CVPIA 2019 annual work plan, which signals that it fit within an established set of planned restoration and monitoring actions for that year. Although the listing shows "Expected Awards: 0," the description makes clear that the intent was to fund UC Davis through this notice process, so the "expected awards" field likely reflects how the opportunity was recorded administratively rather than indicating no project would be supported.

In practical terms, the funded work is aimed at understanding how certain floodplain and bypass landscapes in the Sacramento River system support young salmon. The central focus is juvenile Spring-Run Chinook salmon that rear in the Lower Butte Creek Sink in Sutter County, California, as well as in nearby flood bypass habitats, including the Sutter Bypass. The key scientific question is how these environments contribute to the food resources and growth conditions that juvenile salmon experience. Rather than only tracking where fish go, the project emphasizes "food-web productivity and other growth metrics," meaning it intends to measure how much high-quality prey is produced in these habitats and how that translates into fish growth, condition, and potentially survival advantages during early life stages.

The opportunity highlights that the work will examine a range of rearing habitats. That typically implies comparisons across different floodplain-related settings such as inundated floodplain areas, bypass channels, edge habitats, and potentially managed or seasonal agricultural fields that flood during certain periods. By measuring productivity and growth across multiple habitat types, the project is designed to identify which landscapes function as the most effective nurseries for juvenile salmon and under what conditions (for example, when floodwaters are present, at certain temperatures, or during specific seasonal windows). This kind of information is important because juvenile salmon growth in freshwater can strongly influence later survival, and floodplain habitats are often more productive than main river channels due to warmer, shallower water and abundant plankton and invertebrate production when inundated.

The description also notes that the project will build on prior research conducted in other floodplains in the Sacramento River system and in adjacent agricultural fields. That suggests the study is not starting from scratch; instead, it is leveraging established sampling approaches, productivity measurements, and analytical methods developed in comparable California floodplain environments. The practical outcome the agency is seeking is applied, management-relevant knowledge that can guide decisions about floodplain connectivity, bypass operations, habitat restoration investments, and how agricultural floodplain use might be managed in ways that also benefit salmon and other Central Valley juvenile salmonids.

Overall, this grant opportunity supports a targeted, science-driven effort to quantify the ecological value of the Butte Sink and Sutter Bypass as rearing habitats, with an emphasis on the mechanisms that matter most to fish performance: food availability, food-web production, and measurable growth outcomes. The results are intended to feed directly into CVPIA priorities by improving the evidence base for future watershed and floodplain management in the Sacramento Valley, especially for Spring-Run Chinook salmon and potentially other juvenile salmonid populations that use these seasonal floodplain and bypass habitats.

• The Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service in the natural resources sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Evaluating the Role(s) of the Butte Sink and Sutter Bypass for Butte Creek Spring-Run Chinook salmon and other Central Valley Juvenile Salmonid Populations" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 15.678.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jan 24, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jan 28, 2019. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,185,040.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

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