Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm, was recently awarded a $5 million, five-year Blanket Purchase Agreement with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The contract extends previous work associated with modernizing the Coastal Barrier Resources System (CBRS) by providing a wide variety of technical, mapping, and programmatic support to the USFWS.

The CBRS consists of more than three million acres of undeveloped coastal areas along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Over the past 14 years, this task order supported finalizing the congressionally authorized Digital Pilot Project and revising CBRS boundaries to honor congressional intent. This effort requires extensive research and data mining to enable informed recommendations for each CBRS boundary.

Dewberry’s recent task orders include assisting the USFWS with comprehensive modernization of CBRS maps for states affected by Hurricane Sandy. This task order supports the finalization of the congressionally authorized Digital Pilot Project and preparing a CBRS data layer for inclusion on Flood Insurance Rate Maps for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Dewberry also supports the USFWS in assisting homeowners who are close to a CBRS boundary to determine eligibility for federal flood insurance.