THIS IS A NOTICE OF INTENT TO AWARD A SOLE SOURCE CONTRACT AND IS NOT A REQUEST FOR COMPETITIVE QUOTES Notice of Intent to Award Sole Source for North Dakota Wetlands Mapping Services to Saint Mary's University GeoSpatial Services for FWS J. Clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Joint Administrative Operations, Acquisition & Property Operations intends to award a firm fixed price sole source contract under the authority of FAR 6.302-1 to only one responsible source: Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, 700 Terrace Heights #8, Winona, MN 55987. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this requirement is 541370 Surveying and Mapping. The object of this sole source award to Saint Mary's University GeoSpatial Services is to complete the National Wetland Inventory (NWI) for only two remaining counties in the prairie pothole region of North Dakota. The NWI was established by the FWS to develop a nationwide inventory of U.S. wetlands and surface waters to provide biologists and others with information on the distribution and type of these features to aid in conservation efforts. To do this, the NWI developed a wetland and deepwater classification system (Cowardin et al. 2013, 2nd Edition) that is now the official FWS wetland classification system, the Federal standard for wetland classification (adopted by the Federal Geographic Data Committee on July 29, 1996: 61 Federal Register 39465) and Data Collection Requirements and Procedures for Mapping Wetland, Deepwater and related habitats of the United States (July 2009). The wetlands data created for this project will be included in the wetlands layer of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, which is a National Geospatial Data Asset and must comply with the aforementioned standards. In cooperation with the National Wetlands Inventory office, the FWS has been working with Saint Mary's University of Minnesota to update the NWI for the prairie pothole region of North Dakota since 2018. Almost all areas have been completed, and there are only two counties left, Renville and Rolette. We did not have sufficient funds to complete those in 2021. Completing the last two counties will result in the creation of digital National Wetlands Inventory Version 2 data for the prairie pothole region of North Dakota (that area east and north of the Missouri River). After passing the Wetlands Data Verification Toolset developed by the Service, the digital data will be delivered to the Service in the standard file geodatabase format and data schema. The digital data must comply with the data quality guidelines and include a publication quality project metadata document for posting on the Wetlands Mapper web application. Field Trips will also need to be conducted to verify classification of remotely sensed wetlands. A contract was awarded to Saint Mary's in 2018 (140F0618D0002) after full and open competition was conducted. Seven proposals were received at that time so the Government is aware there are other capable sources that provide mapping services. However, the Service has invested just over $2 million dollars ($2,015,221) to date on this particular mapping project and it would be an extreme administrative burden and quite costly to the Service to attempt to change vendors to complete the final 2 counties associated with the original NWI mapping project. If and when additional mapping projects are required for the Service in the future, competitive opportunities will be given. Saint Mary's University of Minnesota has demonstrated their expertise in the technical areas of habitat delineation, cartography, computer-assisted mapping, geographic information systems (GIS) technology, and aerial photographic and imagery acquisition to produce final habitat maps and digital data according to NWI standards. This entails conducting and refining technical tasks such as image acquisition, data preparation, image analysis, field work, digital data capture, data verification, management, and transmittal for selected status and trends intensification efforts identified by the Service. This synopsis does not constitute a solicitation; however, if any interested party thinks they can meet the above requirement, that party may submit a statement of capabilities. The statement of capabilities must be submitted in writing and must contain clear and convincing evidence that competition of this requirement would be advantageous to the Government. If parties choose to respond, any costs associated with preparation and submission of data or any other costs incurred in response to this announcement are the sole responsibility of the respondent and will not be reimbursed by the Government. Capability statements shall be submitted by e-mail ONLY as an Adobe PDF attachment to the following email address:
[email protected]