Amendment 1.docx

M18AS00003

Amendment 1

The purpose of this amendment is to answer questions posed by potential applicants as follows:

Question: Would BOEM accept an application from one State in partnership with all NE States. Each partner would receive some funding to accomplish BOEM’s stated objectives, but there would only be one POC for BOEM to coordinate with?

BOEM Response: No, this would not be acceptable, as BOEM has a substantial involvement requirement throughout the project with all principal investigators. The substantial involvement with individual state projects would then be circumvented as individual states would perform as subcontractors in the agreement. The objective of the agreement is to coordinate sand and gravel resource identification, delineation and management practices for the Northeast region by developing a regional approach. This will require coordinating with other states in the region to determine priorities, objectives, leveraged opportunities and recommendations. The recommendations from this regional coordination will also assist BOEM in developing individual state or focused level future agreements.

Previous regional coordination agreements have been operating in the mid-Atlantic and southeast Atlantic where one state is principally responsible for regional coordination meetings and developing technical report deliverables. They have involved reimbursement of travel for in-person meetings, laboratory costs for analysis of cores, co-authoring technical presentations etc.

Coordinating in the northeast region is particularly necessary due to the proximity of sand resources with other states, likelihood that coastal restoration projects may be bundled, and that coordination maximizes the regions capacity, and knowledge-base by identifying critical future efforts in an efficient way. Simply stated, we have to work together and find ways to work smarter and more efficiently.

Question: How much emphasis is being placed on the analysis of critical and strategic mineral recovery from sands used for beach nourishment?

BOEM Response: Most emphasis should be directed to the regional coordination in delineating and accessing marine aggregate resources for coastal resilience projects. These projects and objectives best serve the concerns of the citizens in the northeast region. Current thinking is that accessing aggregate for coastal resilience purposes will far precede any mineral extraction effort. The presence of critical and strategic minerals with aggregate sources, however, should be addressed particularly if our current understanding should change. If appropriate, findings could be developed in into a separate and future study. Some marine mineral research information already exists with previous work conducted by the USGS,BOEM/MMS, and state geological surveys.