SPECIAL NOTICE
R -- R--Operation of a NADP/NTN wet atmospheric monitoring
- Notice Date
- 2/24/2021 4:30:07 PM
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541380
— Testing Laboratories
- Contracting Office
- OFC OF ACQUSITION GRANTS-NATIONAL RESTON VA 20192 USA
- ZIP Code
- 20192
- Solicitation Number
- 140G0121Q0068
- Response Due
- 2/26/2021 3:00:00 PM
- Archive Date
- 02/27/2021
- Point of Contact
- Lepe, Michael, Phone: 703-648-7312, Fax: 703-648-7899
- E-Mail Address
-
mlepe@usgs.gov
(mlepe@usgs.gov)
- Description
- The USGS has a requirement to procure a sole source acquisition with the following provider of atmospheric deposition station operation services for a cooperatively supported station between the USGS and the site owner and operator in support of the interagency National Atmospheric Deposition Program, National Trends Network (NADP-NTN). 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, School of Forest Resources for operation of Station, unless it is contacted by any vendor who believes they can provide the same product/service. Vendors are invited to contact the Contract Specialist, Michael Lepe, via email at mlepe@usgs.gov no later than 5:00 PM EST, Friday, 02/26/2021 with an affirmative answer. Sole Source Justification States the Following Part: 6. Rationale Supporting Use of Citation in No. 5. The USGS is responsible for the operation of nine atmospheric deposition sites where the land and the site are 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 Efforts to Identify Additional Sources Including the Market Research Conducted. Where a USGS-supported site can be potentially operated by any number of interested individuals or organizations, we offer those site duties via a competitive process. This document describes the situation where we have sites that cannot be competed due to the cooperative partnership aspect of these sites� location and ownership. Future Plans to Permit Competition. Although these cooperative sites have typically been operated for many years often by the same organization or individual, when and if the opportunity arises to either relocate the site or have the operation of the site turned over to another organization, the USGS has and will in the future use a competitive process to select a new site operation partner.
- Web Link
-
SAM.gov Permalink
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- Record
- SN05925235-F 20210226/210224230112 (samdaily.us)
- Source
-
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