Natural Resources Secretary Of

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission, a U.S. state government entity headquartered in Hampton, Virginia, acts as a prime recipient of federal grants and a sub-recipient of grants managed by other Virginia state agencies, delivering marine fisheries monitoring, data collection, law enforcement, and habitat management services to federal agencies and interstate fisheries bodies. The commission operates predominantly as a grant recipient rather than a federal contractor and does not hold IDIQs, GWACs, or federal contract vehicles.

VMRC's grant footprint concentrates almost exclusively on the Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which accounts for 55 awards across the recent portfolio—the vast majority of its grant activity. The second-largest customer is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with 24 awards. The remaining activity is distributed across the Army Corps of Engineers, NASA Goddard Space Center, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of the Navy. The combined potential value of all awards is modest at $212 thousand, but actual obligations total $74.9 million, reflecting the fact that many grants carry formula-based or continuing awards with multiple-year obligation cycles.

VMRC's capability footprint centers on fisheries population monitoring, stock assessment, and marine resource regulation across Virginia's coastal waters and Chesapeake Bay tributaries. Representative work includes a $256,596 Interjurisdictional Fisheries Act project grant from NOAA (CFDA 11.407) awarded in March 2026 supporting the development of a fishery-dependent observer program to monitor protected species interactions in commercial gill net operations through February 2030. A $235,718 Sport Fish Restoration formula grant from FWS Region 5 (CFDA 15.605) awarded in December 2025 funds striped bass population assessment through weekly gill net surveys on the Rappahannock and James Rivers, tagging of approximately 1,000 legal-sized striped bass in coordination with the FWS Coastal Tagging Program, and biometric analysis and scale aging. A $340,748 Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act project grant from NOAA (CFDA 11.474) awarded in October 2025 supports the VMRC's Law Enforcement Division and Marine Police operations, delivering finfish and shellfish regulation enforcement, condemned shellfish relaying, search and rescue, and small boat safety enforcement across Virginia's coastal waters and Chesapeake Bay region through September 2029. Additional recurring work includes the Chesapeake Bay Multispecies Monitoring and Assessment Program (CHESMMAP), a bottom trawl survey generating relative abundance, age, sex ratio, maturity, and trophic interaction data for commercially, recreationally, and ecologically important fish species, and operation of the VMRC Age and Growth Laboratory, which provides age-composition data supporting regional stock assessments and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission management regulations for striped bass, weakfish, and other species.

VMRC also acts as a sub-recipient under grants managed by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Recent sub-awards include marine recreation information program (MRIP) data collection work through the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (January 2025) and permit review and compliance documentation for submerged lands, tidal wetlands, dunes, and beaches under a Virginia DEQ coastal zone management subaward (October 2025). A single one-year subaward from Virginia DEQ's Coastal Zone Management program (August 2024) provided temporary funding support to the Living Shorelines Collaborative via VMRC, a regional partnership focused on scaling adaptive and resilient shoreline practices in the tidal James River watershed.

Activity has remained relatively flat at nine to ten awards annually over the past five years, with only one award in 2026 to date. Three awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months. The commission's grant work is driven by multi-year fisheries monitoring and assessment missions, with particular depth in striped bass, American shad, river herring, and general Chesapeake Bay ecosystem monitoring. The primary federal agency relationships are with DOI FWS Region 5 on Sport Fish Restoration programs and NOAA on fisheries management and coastal resilience initiatives.