The Environmental Protection Agency intends to award a contract for "Research Support for Environmental Method Development, Measurement Modeling, Characterization, and Exposure Assessment" for the Office of Research and Development (ORD) National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD). The acquisition will be made by way of full and open competition. A cost-plus-fixed-fee contract is anticipated to result from the award of this solicitation. The resulting contract is expected to have a Base Year (beginning on or about July 01, 2005) and four single year option periods (continuing through June 30, 2010 if all options are exercised). The associated NAICS Code is 541710 with a size standard of 500 employees. This procurement will not be made under FAR Part 12 provisions. This effort will support the NERL/ORD's broad responsibilities in characterizing and quantifying the source, transport, transformation, fate and characterization of a wide variety of toxic pollutants across the human exposure and ecological paradigm. It will also include determinations of the physical, chemical, and other characteristics of aerosol pollutants which include particulate matter (PM) and gases, and how these characteristics affect the entry of the pollutants into humans and the environment. This will be NERL/ORD's leading research vehicle for the following research responsibilities: (1) develop and validate instrumentation, (2) methodologies (including U.S. EPA reference Methods), (3) manuals, (4) guidelines, (5) Standard Operating Procedures, and (6) Quality Assurance Procedures (QAP) for the measurement of ambient levels fo pollutants of concern to the U.S. EPA. These resultant instruments, methods, QAP, etc., will be used by the U.S. EPA as it's major basis of validating measurements of ambient levels of pollutants that are of concern to the U.S. EPA. The U.S. EPA relies on the validated instrumentation methodology and QAP as it is the main source of support in determining the validity of it's ambient pollutant determinations. The U.S. EPA's ambient pollutant data is an essential part of the basis for the U.S. EPA's regulatory ambient air standards for enforcement of the standards. A pre-proposal conference will be held in association with this procurement. Interested parties should monitor the U.S. EPA's website shown at the end of this announcement for further details. It is estimated that the solicitation will be issued on or about November 30, 2004. Proposals will be due approximately 45 days after the Request for Proposals (RFP) issuance date. This acquisition represents a follow-on to contract 68-D-00-206. A copy of the Statement of Work (SOW) for contract 68-D-00-206 is posted for review, at the internet site listed below. The solicitation and all amendments for this procurement will be available via the internet at the following URL: http://www.epa.gov/oam/rtp_cmd/. Firms must access the solicitation and amendments via the internet. Once you obtain a copy of the solicitation via the internet, it will be your responsibility to frequently check the same site where the solicitation is posted for any amendments. The Contract Specialist for this effort will be Joel P. Smith, and he may be reached at (919) 541-0184 or at
[email protected]. Telephone and FAX requests will not be honored. Hard copies or diskettes will not be available.