Inundated Heritage Data Collection, Community Outreach, and Public Dissemination, Willamette Valley, Oregon | W81EWF 22 SOI 0016

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81EWF 22 SOI 0016

The grant opportunity titled "Inundated Heritage Data Collection, Community Outreach, and Public Dissemination, Willamette Valley, Oregon" is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-related research and public history effort focused on documenting the community-level consequences of dam and reservoir construction across the Willamette Valley Project (WVP). The WVP consists of thirteen dams and associated reservoirs built between 1940 and 1969 (Big Cliff, Blue River, Cottage Grove, Cougar, Detroit, Dexter, Dorena, Fall Creek, Fern Ridge, Foster, Green Peter, Hills Creek, and Lookout Point). While these projects were authorized for multiple purposes (including flood control, hydropower, irrigation, navigation, fish and wildlife, recreation, water supply, and water quality), their construction also required land acquisition, clearing of lands slated for inundation, and the relocation or displacement of people and communities. The program area spans roughly 55,000 acres and affected human settlement patterns across six Willamette Valley watersheds, leaving a legacy that is still felt locally.

A central motivation for this funding is that the Corps has never carried out a comprehensive heritage-focused study that captures both the measurable scope of displacement (for example, acres cleared and dollars spent, as reflected in real estate records, maps, photos, and design manuals) and the harder-to-quantify human experience of relocation. Existing information is described as scattered, inconsistently organized, and difficult for both agency staff and the public to access, which limits its usefulness for environmental compliance work and for communities trying to understand what happened to their towns, families, and historic places. The opportunity also highlights major gaps in knowledge about how reservoir inundation impacted Tribal communities, including the loss of traditional land-use areas, especially during a period when termination policies stripped federal recognition from many Tribes with connections to the Willamette Valley. The broader historical context matters here: planning and construction changed over time as the project expanded after World War II, hydropower and recreation were added to project purposes, population growth altered siting and relocation decisions, and emerging environmental pressures pushed the Corps to consider fish, wildlife, and habitat impacts. The funding frames these as under-studied issues that continue to shape local "sense of place" and how communities view and interact with the Corps today.

The anticipated work is designed as an applied research-and-outreach project that blends history, anthropology, and geography to build a more community-centered understanding of displacement and inundation. Rather than producing only a conventional technical report, the project aims to develop and test methods for collecting lived experience and local knowledge in real time, then use what is learned to improve how the Corps conducts future public engagement, interpretation, and compliance-related outreach. This matters now because WVP operations and maintenance decisions are evolving, including in connection with the Willamette Valley Systems Environmental Impact Statement (referenced as finalized in 2024). The Willamette Valley has also experienced major wildfire and storm events, and the opportunity notes that climate change and requirements tied to endangered fish recovery will likely force future operational changes. The agency is explicitly looking for a deeper historical understanding to help it engage more equitably and effectively with communities that may be affected by future shifts in reservoir management.

The project is organized around four main objectives. First, it calls for creating and implementing an innovative methodology to collect, analyze, and share community history connected to heritage resources affected by dam construction and reservoir inundation. "Heritage resources" is used broadly here and can include buildings, sites, land uses, oral histories, traditions, and artifacts. This objective emphasizes pulling from a wide range of sources and repositories, including federal, Tribal, state, and local collections, and then integrating them into a coherent narrative that explains place-based change over time. Second, the opportunity requires building practical, collaborative approaches for community engagement that are specifically focused on relocations, displacements, and associated changes. This includes developing best practices for consultation and partnership with diverse community members and with Indian Tribes, and it stresses reciprocity: the work should not only gather information but also return it to communities in forms that support existing heritage goals. Engagement is expected to use a mix of in-person, digital, and hybrid methods, with an eye toward approaches that could later be adapted for NEPA outreach, interpretive programming, and broader "good neighbor" practices across other Corps projects.

Third, the grant aims to improve cultural and natural resource management by incorporating more localized knowledge, including traditional knowledge where appropriate, into ongoing decision-making. A key piece is working with Tribes to identify former locations of traditional use that could inform restoration projects and improve resource accessibility. The opportunity also anticipates that the research outputs could strengthen cultural resource management within the WVP and contribute to regional understanding for other Pacific Northwest researchers, including future compliance efficiencies such as predictability models and more programmatic approaches. Fourth, the project includes an explicit workforce and education component: training undergraduate and graduate students in both traditional archival research and in community-based methods such as crowdsourcing and oral history collection. Students are expected to gain hands-on experience with primary sources, digitization standards, and digital tools such as georeferencing and scanning, as well as whatever digital platform is selected for sharing results publicly.

The work plan implied by the notice includes several interconnected task areas. Research tasks involve reviewing and synthesizing existing records held by the Corps and other repositories, and digitizing relevant materials when appropriate so they can be distributed in accessible public formats. Community outreach tasks include consulting with individuals and communities to collect oral histories and community-held materials such as photographs, artifacts, and unpublished documents, and hosting community history collection events designed to be safe and welcoming, especially given that displacement and loss can be sensitive topics. Analysis and development tasks involve turning findings into publicly accessible products that combine written narrative with visuals and audio, not just for storytelling but also to create usable tools for education and engagement. The opportunity also requires producing documentation about the methodology itself, including what worked, what did not, and best practices that could be replicated at other Corps projects. Public distribution is treated as a major deliverable: results should be launched and publicized to local communities, heritage and academic organizations, and internal Corps audiences, reflecting the expectation that the project has both public benefit and operational value.

A distinctive feature of the opportunity is its emphasis on evaluating effectiveness, not only in the academic sense but in a practical program-improvement sense. The selected investigator is expected to assess research methods, outreach strategies, analysis, and dissemination using both quantitative and qualitative measures, and to offer recommendations for how these approaches can be improved or adapted for future efforts. The notice specifically calls for a robust discussion of how the Corps can adjust public outreach with communities that were historically impacted by inundation so that future engagement is more successful. Finally, the awardee is expected to develop a multi-year plan that lays out research questions and avenues to pursue over the life of the agreement, focusing on (1) effective ways to document local history through both archival and community-based collection, (2) meaningful engagement approaches that help communities and the Corps better understand their shared history and impacts, and (3) how federal agencies can engage communities more responsibly when management actions may have major household- and community-level consequences.

From the funding and administrative perspective, this is a discretionary cooperative agreement (not a standard procurement contract), issued under the Department of Defense through the Engineer Research and Development Center, with CFDA number 12.630. The opportunity number is W81EWF 22 SOI 0016. It anticipated a single award with a ceiling of $200,000. The posting indicates it was created on June 1, 2022, with an original closing date of July 31, 2022, and eligibility is listed broadly as "Others" with additional eligibility details referenced in the full announcement.

• The Department of Defense, Engineer Research and Development Center in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Inundated Heritage Data Collection, Community Outreach, and Public Dissemination, Willamette Valley, Oregon" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.630.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 01, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 31, 2022. (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 $200,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for W81EWF 22 SOI 0016

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