Description
FEDBIZOPS Synopsis The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) is seeking a contractor to provide Technical, Analytical and Regulatory Support for the Office of Water, (OW), Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water (OGWDW), Water Security Division (WSD). With the nation under continuing threat from those who seek to harm it, EPA has the important responsibility of protecting the environment from terrorist acts. In addition, the Water Security Division has responsibilities of an ?all hazards? approach to protecting the nation?s water supply in the instance of natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, climate changes, chemical security issues, and pandemic illnesses. Guidance concerning responsibilities and programmatic requirements of the WSD is available via the web at www.epa.gov/watersecurity. The contract resulting from this solicitation will provide mission critical support for homeland security issues with a water sector emphasis. The successful contractor shall provide all necessary labor, materials, services, equipment and facilities to support the efforts delineated by the Performance Work Statement (PWS). Services to be performed are intended to support the protection of critical infrastructure for the water sector, and also include tasks related to research, development, testing, training, and communication and/or implementation of enhanced methods for detection, treatment, and containment of biological and chemical contaminants of concern and the delivery of a safe water supply to the nation. Water sector security areas to be addressed by the contract include requirements related to 1) critical infrastructure protection; 2) national preparedness, response, and recovery; and 3) Agency communication, information, and program management efforts. Services to be performed under this contract include technical, engineering, and scientific efforts; support for contamination warning system initiatives; emergency response and threat identification planning and response methods; method and guidance development; preparedness initiatives related to laboratory capability and capacity; data compilation, review, and management; regulation development; communication and coordination efforts with sector strategic partners; strategic planning and management support, including cost/benefit analysis, and risk assessment. Services to be performed also include program evaluation, and economic impact; consequence analysis initiatives; information technology initiatives, including information protection efforts; vulnerability assessment compilation and maintenance efforts; tool development and support; meeting and facilitation support; and training, outreach, peer review, and logistical efforts; support for emerging ?all hazards? concerns, including chemical security, pandemic illness, and climate change impacts. The successful contractor shall also have experience designing and conducting training, and demonstrate the ability to support application of those skills to the water and emergency response sectors. The successful contractor is responsible for having in place the appropriate facility clearance (as indicated on the applicable DD Form 254 ? Dept. of Defense Contract Security Classification Specification) at the time of proposal submission. Clearances for individual personnel in disciplines required to perform the effort shall be in place within 30 days of contract award. The successful contractor shall have an established plan in place to coordinate appropriate laboratory services when necessary, accessing facilities, equipment, and scientific expertise needed, but no in-house laboratory facility is required. This is a follow on requirement to support the mission of the Water Security Division, but does include new task areas in the Performance Work Statement. The current contractor supporting this requirement is CSC Corp. under Contract EP-C-05-045. The new contract is anticipated to be a CPFF, Level of Effort, term contract and will have a base period with (4) twelve month option periods. The base period and each option period will consist of approximately 50,000 direct labor hours for a base quantity, and another 150,000 of optional quantity available in each period, to provide flexibility should national events require it. Total maximum Level of Effort, if all quantity options are exercised, for the five years of anticipated performance is estimated at 1,000,000 direct labor hours. Anticipated award date for this contract is July 1, 2010. Due to the size of the requirement, the RFP shall be conducted using FULL and OPEN competition procedures. Significant evaluation will be given to the use of socio-economic diversity by the offeror in its proposal. The NAICS code for the effort is 541620. Interested small, small disadvantaged, HUBZone, Service Disabled Veteran, 8(a), and Woman Owned Small Businesses who would like to have their areas of expertise included on a source list attached to the Cincinnati website concerning this RFP should immediately submit the following information to the Contract Specialist: Name and address of company; specific contact within company including name, telephone, and e-mail address; company website address; short summary of expertise area within the projected scope of work (3 line maximum); socio-economic classification; and NAICS codes. This information will be updated until two weeks before the proposals are due, to allow interested Primes the opportunity to review potential team members. Significant potential exists for an organizational conflict of interest under this procurement. Therefore, it is anticipated to be in the best interest of the Government to exclude all of the following groups: (1) firms that sell commercial security systems; (2) firms that own or operate community water systems; (3) firms that own or operate contaminated waste disposal or chemical security technology firms, or (4) firms that have vested commercial interest in emerging decontamination technology. This exclusion may change when the RFP is released. Also, the solicitation will include the clause entitled LIMITATION OF FUTURE CONTRACTING (LOFC) which states in part: "The contractor, during the life of this contract, will be ineligible to enter into business or financial relationships which would support or affect any efforts to contest, oppose, or influence the contents of regulations, policies, limitations, standards or criteria relating to the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Clean Water Act, for which it has provided, is providing, or has work assignments to provide technical and administrative support under this contract, without prior written authorization from the EPA cognizant contracting officer." Be advised, however, that the afore-mentioned limitations may change when the RFP is released. Solicitation PR-CI-09-10342 will appear on the internet and it may be accessed through the EPA?s home page on the World Wide Net (www.epa.gov). It is the responsibility of interested offerors to frequently check the FEDBizOpps or the EPA website address for updates or changes. See Cincinnati website, http://www.epa.gov/oam/cinn_cmd for posted draft Performance Work Statement, draft security related requirements, and the interested party source list for this requirement. Be advised, Performance Work Statement changes are possible when final RFP is released. The direct link URL for the RFP when issued is http://www.epa.gov/oam/cinn_cmd. It is anticipated that this solicitation will be issued on or around May 27, 2009. No hard copies will be available.