Intent to Award: The US Geological Survey (USGS) is seeking the acid precipitation monitoring services for monitoring site AR02 in the National Atmospheric Deposition Program, National Trends Network (NADP-NTN) located in Bradley County, Arkansas. The land is owned by the University of Arkansas. This will allow for operation of a NADP-NTN wet atmospheric monitoring station. Operation requires weekly site visits to the site to collect, process, and ship the precipitation sample, collect, process and transmit associated data with the site including the precipitation gage record and perform routine instrument checks, maintenance and repairs as needed. Period of Performance will be 03/07/2016 through 3/06/2017 with 4 One year options as follows: Option Year One: 03/07/2017-03/06/2018 Option Year Two: 03/07/2018-03/06/2019 Option Year Three: 03/07/2019-03/06/2020 Option Year Four: 03/07/2020-03/06/2021 The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Water Mission Area, Office of Water Quality requires the operation of these sites in order to support the NADP-NTN. The USGS is the designated lead agency for the monitoring of atmospheric deposition and NADP is the operational organization through which the USGS and other participating organizations accomplish this national-scale monitoring in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. The USGS is aware of no other source that can provide the above. Therefore, it intends to make an award to the University of Arkansas, unless it is contacted by any who believes they have obtained similar technical expertise and can provide the same service. Vendors are invited to contact the Contract Specialist, Andres Castro via email at
[email protected] no later than 2:00 PM EST, Thursday, February 18, 2016 with an affirmative answer. SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION STATES THE FOLLOWING PART: The following information is provided to demonstrate the proposed contractor¿s unique qualifications. The USGS is responsible for the operation of nine atmospheric deposition sites where the land and the site is owned by another organization, agency or individual and are in restricted scientific research areas, AR02 is one of these nine sites. It is a mutually beneficial scientific and technical partnership between this organization that has purview over the site location and desire the information collected from this site. USGS needs information gathered from this site as part of a national network for national-scale measurement of the status and trends in wet deposition. Moving the site would result in a break of the long-term environment monitoring record, i.e., a new site location data would not be comparable to the previous site, which typically has continuous monitoring data back to the early 1980¿s. The site operating organization, The University of Arkansas (U of A) owns the land and research area where the sampling equipment for NADP site AR02 site is located which specifically is at the U of A, Department of Agriculture, Forest Research Center - an outdoor environmental research and monitoring site. U of A will not allow a third-party vendor to operate this site or have access to the land, site or equipment. For liability and other reasons they only allow U of A employed research technicians to service this NADP station and access the other environmental instruments and buildings in this research area. Some equipment is owned by the USGS and other equipment essential to operating the site such as platforms, electrical power service, access paths, fences, sample processing field laboratory building and roads at the site is owned by the U of A. Supporting this site requires 52 trips per year to this location, in rural and very remote areas on land and at scientific research areas that are not open to the public or open to weekly visits by individuals from other private organization. In no case does the USGS own the land or have control over site access. The primary reason the USGS is not operating this site is because, despite having offices in every state with multiple field offices in most states, we do not have the means or permission to access this site. It is cost prohibitive to USGS to operate this site therefore, USGS is funding the scientific activity and the sponsoring organization maintains control of the site access. USGS offices do operate a number of other sites where we do have the means and access to site locations, but the list of nine sites where we seek sole source awards are the "partnership" site locations where we do not have the means and permission to access the sites. A competitive action would imply that we could unilaterally remove the land-owning and operating organizations or individuals from this activity and replace them with a private entity. This is not the case, since these multi-decade long research and monitoring sites are not under the ownership and control of the USGS, the USGS is funding the scientific activity. The NADP is a public, nonprofit, unincorporated, interstate association of parties interested in atmospheric deposition and its effects. It is structured as a cooperative program that represents coordinated efforts of many federal, state, academic, and private organizations and individuals to operate monitoring sites, report data, and oversee research activities related to atmospheric deposition. Membership in NADP is open to individuals and institutions interested in participating in any aspect of atmospheric deposition monitoring and/or research stemming from NADP data. This organizational structure is consistent with State Agricultural Experiment Station (SAES) Guidelines for Multi-state Research Activities. The contracts the USGS seeks to award represent partnerships to support sites in the most efficient manner with organizations and individuals that own and control the local site locations. Under the interagency National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program established in 1981, the USGS is the designated lead agency for the monitoring of atmospheric deposition and NADP is the operational organization through which the USGS and other participating organizations accomplish this national-scale monitoring in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.