Standarized and Cost-Effective Benthic Habitat Mapping and Monitoring Tools for MHK Environmental Assesments Award Number: DE-EE0007826 CX(s) Applied: A9, B3.16 Water Power Technology Office Date: 12/8/2016 Location(s): WA Office(s): Golden Fi...
Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance
December 12, 2016
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Standarized and Cost-Effective Benthic Habitat Mapping and Monitoring Tools for MHK Environmental Assesments
Award Number: DE-EE0007826
CX(s) Applied: A9, B3.16
Water Power Technology Office
Date: 12/8/2016
Location(s): WA
Office(s): Golden Field Office
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing to provide funding to Integral Consulting Inc. (Integral) to standardize and automate seafloor and sediment imaging technologies for rapidly characterizing sediment and biota and generating benthic habitat maps across a range of environments.
The proposed project would be divided into three Budget Periods, with a Go/No Go decision point between each Budget Period. This NEPA review is for Budget Period 1 (BP1) only. In BP1 Integral would conduct five tasks. Task 1 would include field testing the device at the Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) Marine Science Laboratory (MSL), specifically in Sequim Bay, WA. Tasks 2-5 would include analyzing data gathered in Task 1, developing a training data set, developing a plan to modify existing hardware, developing algorithms to estimate image metrics, and incorporating the algorithms developed into software for future testing. Task 2-5 are administrative and data analysis tasks which would take place at Integrals offices in Santa Cruz, CA. Task 1 would involve field testing in an ocean environment in and around Sequim Bay, WA.