Tech Support for Devel. and Approving Water Qual. Stands and Crit   3

Technical Support for Developing and Approving Water Quality Standards and Criteria Closely Associated - IGF::CL::IGF THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT SYNOPSIS FOR WRITTEN INFORMATION ONLY. THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION ANNOUNCEMENT FOR PROPOSALS AND NO CONTRACT WILL BE AWARDED FROM THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. NO REIMBURSEMENT WILL BE MADE FOR ANY COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH PROVIDING INFORMATION IN RESPONSE TO THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND ANY FOLLOW-UP REQUESTS. NO TELEPHONE CALLS REQUESTING A SOLICITATION WILL BE ACCEPTED OR ACKNOWLEDGED. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is performing market research to identify the capabilities of firms that can provide technical support to the EPA's Office of Water, Standards and Health Protection Division (SHPD) for developing and approving water quality standards and criteria. The SHPD and its National Branch (NB), and its Regional Branch (RB), have multiple responsibilities under the Clean Water Act of 1987 (CWA), as amended, and the BEACH Act of 2000. These include directing and overseeing the national program for adoption of water quality standards (WQS) and application of those standards to beach, fish and shellfish monitoring and advisory programs. In accomplishing this mission, the program provides management strategies, guidance, assessments, technical support and tools for use by States and Indian Tribes in developing their water quality standards programs. NB and RB also provide programmatic support for the implementation and evaluation of Water Quality Standards (WQS) by identifying, assessing and controlling risks to aquatic ecosystems. In particular, the required technical support services include the following: providing technical support to EPA in the development of regulations, policies, and guidance on WQS program development and implementation; assisting EPA in providing and coordinating technical support for development, adoption, and implementation water quality standards and criteria to States and Indian tribes, including expert support; assisting EPA in establishing priorities for State and Tribal WQS programs; providing support in coordinating regional WQS reviews, approvals and disapprovals and national WQS promulgations; providing support in coordinating WQS information management and analysis; providing program related technical support, outreach, training, education to Regions, States, and Indian Tribes and other stakeholders; providing technical support for implementation of WQS including use attainability analyses, environmental assessments, economic benefit analysis, and total maximum daily load (TMDL) calculations including use of geographic information systems, multi-media environmental fate and transport models, and water quality based permitting; providing technical support for developing and managing cross-media and multi-Agency policies to ensure standards and exposure goals are attainted; and assisting EPA in coordinating policies with our partners in other federal agencies (especially the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service) to insure all legal mandates are met. It is anticipated that the contract will be a cost-plus-fixed-fee, term contract. It is anticipated to provide up to 60,000 professional labor hours over the term of the contract, including the base period and four option periods. The applicable NAICS code is 541620 with a size standard of $15 million in average annual receipts. In the capabilities statements, contractors must provide their size status for the above referenced NAICS code, (i.e. large, small) and whether or not they are a certified hub zone, 8(a), women owned, small disadvantaged and/or service disabled veteran owned concern. The EPA reserves the right to set this action aside for small businesses. 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. A draft copy of the performance work statement (PWS) is included as an attachment. Significant 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 . Interested parties with the capability of providing any of the services described in the draft PWS posted at the FedConnect website: https://www.fedconnect.net/ are invited to submit a ten (10) page document, in writing, sufficient information that clearly demonstrates their ability to provide the services described in the draft PWS, including personnel, experience and qualifications. A description of similar services previously or currently provided shall be provided. Additionally, interested parties should include a discussion of the capability of their accounting system or ability to implement a cost accounting system required of a cost-type contract. Previous experience with cost-type government contracts should be discussed. Standard company brochures will not be considered a sufficient response to this Sources Sought Synopsis. Capabilities Statements in response to this Sources Sought Synopsis MUST BE SUBMITTED THROUGH THE FEDCONNECT PORTAL by 4:00 p.m. EST, on February 2, 2016. Any questions regarding the content of this sources sought synopsis announcement must be submitted through the FedConnect portal. You must register with FedConnect to submit documents, questions, and to view responses. FedConnect can be accessed at https://www.fedconnect.net/Fedconnect/. 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. A separate synopsis will be issued for the Request for Proposal (RFP) resulting from this sources sought synopsis. Any resulting contract from the RFP would be a follow-on to contract EP-C-12-006 with Horsley Witten Group, Inc.