Description
The Clean Water Act (CWA) mandates that Environmental Protection Agency restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters. One of the primary tasks associated with this effort is to eliminate or control the discharge of pollutants, particularly toxic pollutants, into the Nation's waterways. The Office of Water, Engineering and Analysis Division, is responsible for the development of national technology-based effluent regulations, e.g., the national categorical effluent limitations guidelines and standards. These limitations and standards are established by this program for all facilities which discharge or may discharge directly into waterways of the United States, or which indirectly discharge or may discharge into publicly owned treatment works. Contract 68-C5-0005 provides technical support to EAD to enable EPA to establish and defend the effluent limitations guidelines and standards for the Metal Products and Machinery (MP&M) Point Source Category. After lengthy negotiations with NRDC, EPA filed an unopposed motion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to modify the Consent Decree to, among other things, merge the two phases of the MP&M effluent guideline and modify the dates for proposal and final action. The combined MP&M regulation was proposed in October 2000 with December 2002 as the date for final promulgation. Contract 68-C5-0005 currently consists of a base period with six one-year option periods. Due to the extensive effort required to compile the regulatory record for the proposed rule, categorize and respond to comments upon the proposed rule, perform sampling episodes, and site visits, additional effort is required. The US EPA intends to negotiate on a sole source basis, an increase to the Level-Of-Effort for this contract by 10,000 hours for Option Period 6 of the contract. Negotiations shall be conducted pursuant to the authority of 42 U.S.C. 253 (c) (1), which allows for negotiations without full and open competition if there is only one responsible source. The basis for this determination is that only ERG can provide the continuity to complete the remaining complex technical work. The remaining technical support efforts are characterized by multiple, concurrent and sequential, interrelated engineering tasks and activities. To develop coherent, well-documented engineering analyses and defensible rulemaking records it is necessary to utilize the same contract personnel throughout the rulemaking process. In addition, the Agency is still in the process of selecting technology options for the MP&M subcategories. The contractor that developed the cost modules and pollutant loading reduction databases would provide optimum performance in providing appropriate analyses for the option selection process. Any delay in these technical analyses and option selection process would cause EPA to miss its court-ordered deadline for the notice of proposed rulemaking. A new resource would result in a duplication of previous effort and as such cost. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. Sources wishing to be considered must submit documentation to the office identified above which establishes that (1) the company has the expertise to meet the contract technical requirements; (2) it has the facilities and personnel available; and (3) that it can provide continuity in the studies and analysis required to meet the regulatory mandates and maintaining the reliability of the data without duplication of costs or effort. Documentation should be submitted within 15 days of publication of this notice. See notes 22 and 26.