Opportunity: Technical Support for Implementation of the Unregu

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Water, Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (OGWDW), Technical Support Center requires contractor support to provide technical, analytical, and administrative support services for the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR). The United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA), Office of Water (OW), Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water (OGWDW), is responsible for implementing the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) section 1445(a)(2), "Monitoring Program for Unregulated Contaminants." This section, as amended in 1996, requires that once every five years, EPA issue a new list of no more than 30 unregulated contaminants to be monitored by public water systems (PWSs). This Unregulated Monitoring Rule (UCMR) requires PWSs to collect occurrence data for contaminants that may be present in drinking water but are not yet subject to EPA's drinking water standards set under SDWA. This rule benefits public health by providing EPA and other interested parties with scientifically valid data on the national occurrence of selected contaminants in drinking water. This dataset is one of the primary sources of information on occurrence, levels of exposure and population exposure the Agency uses to develop regulatory decisions for contaminants in the public drinking water supply. SDWA requires that EPA (1) have direct implementation responsibilities (with state assistance through Partnership Agreements) (2) enter the monitoring data into the Agency's publically available National Contaminant Occurrence Database (3) ensure that systems serving a population larger than 10,000 people, as well as a nationally representative sample of PWSs serving 10,000 or fewer people, are required to monitor. EPA must also vary the frequency and schedule for monitoring based on the number of persons served, the source of supply and the contaminants likely to be found. The final UCMR 4 (https://www.epa.gov/dwucmr/fourth-unregulated-contaminant-monitoring-rule) identifies eleven analytical methods to support water system monitoring for a total of 30 chemical contaminants, consisting of nine cyanotoxins and one cyanotoxin group; two metals; eight pesticides plus one pesticide manufacturing byproduct (hereinafter collectively referred to as pesticides); three brominated haloacetic acid disinfection byproducts groups; three alcohols; and three semivolatile organic chemicals. The proposed contract will have a base period consisting of 12 months with five option periods of 12 months each, for a total potential period of performance of six years. Total maximum level of effort for this six-year period of performance is 104,400 direct labor hours. It is anticipated that a cost plus fixed-fee/level-of-effort contract will result from this solicitation. This is a follow-on-requirement, of the current EPA contract EP-C-12-057 with Great Lakes Environmental Consultants. Potential exists for an organizational conflict of interest (COI) under any resulting procurement. Therefore for informational purposes areas of concerns are identified in the Attachment "Draft COI Requirements". Final COI documents will be provided in the solicitation. The anticipated solicitation release date is late April 2017, and the close date shall be approximately 30 days thereafter. The solicitation will be issued as a small business-set-aside basis. As a reminder, small businesses are required to perform at least 50 percent of the costs of the contract performance with their own personnel (See FAR 52.219-14) under a procurement set aside for small businesses. Notices of any modifications to this FBO procurement announcement, including Requests for Proposals and amendments, will be posted using the FedConnect web portal. FedConnect can be accessed at https://www.fedconnect.net/Fedconnect/. Interested parties are expected to download the solicitation and any subsequent amendments from the website and to monitor the status of the solicitation. All responsible sources may submit a proposal. The applicable NAICS code is 541620 with a size standard of $15 million. Contract award will be made in accordance with FAR Part 15- Contracting by Negotiation. The point of contact is Donna Reinhart, at (513)487-2114, reinhart.donna@epa.gov . FedConnect is a web portal that connects agencies and vendors to streamline the process of doing business with the federal government. Through FedConnect contractors will be able to receive, review and respond to contract pre- and post-award actions and documents such as correspondence, request for proposals, tasking instruments and contract modifications. The use of FedConnect also furthers the EPA's commitment to moving towards a paperless acquisition environment by reducing its carbon footprint and conducting its business in an ecologically friendly manner. There is no charge to use FedConnect. Vendors can register with FedConnect at www.fedconnect.net/FedConnect/. For assistance in registering or for other FedConnect technical questions please call the FedConnect Help Desk at (800) 899-6665 or email at support@fedconnect.net. In addition, all vendors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM), as this facilitates registration for FedConnect. Please note that vendors MUST have their SAM profile set to "public" otherwise FedConnect will not be able to access the SAM information required to validate vendor credentials. Registration may be completed and information regarding the registration process may be obtained at http://www.sam.gov. There is no charge for registration in SAM.