BATON ROUGE, La.--The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) is now accepting applications for the Sport Fish Restoration Boating Infrastructure Grant Program (BIG Program). The United States Fish and Wildlife Service designed this grant program to provide mooring accommodations for transient recreational boaters (i.e., boaters traveling to a single facility for day use or staying at a single facility for up to 15 days) with vessels greater than 26 feet in length.

There are two levels of available funding - Tier I with a maximum of $200,000 and Tier II with a maximum of $1.5 million dollars. Tier II grant applications are nationally competitive. Both funding opportunities have a minimum non-federal match requirement of 25 percent of the total project cost to be provided by the applicant. All project elements must be designed to accommodate recreational transient boaters. More information on the BIG Program can be found here .

Applications for the BIG Program must be received by LDWF before August 5, 2019, to be considered for the current funding cycle.

For questions or to request an application, please contact Melissa Longman at mlongman@wlf.la.gov or 225-765-2343.