This Is a Special Notice of Intent to Award a Sole-Source Contract

The intent of this Special Notice is for informational purposes only. The United States Department of Agriculture/Forest Service (USDA/FS) Procurement and Property Services (PPS), Incident Procurement Operations (IPO), Logistics Contracting Branch (LCB) intends to award a non-commercial, sole source, Requirements contract to Compass Minerals for supply of aerial Long-Term Fire Retardant (LTFR) product (Qela) and ancillary support at designated Airtanker base (ATB) locations, for the purpose of an Operation Field Evaluation (OFE) on their conditionally qualified aerial LTFR product for testing purposes during Wildland Firefighting efforts. The aerial LTFR product required and supplied must be conditional/interim qualified on the Qualified Products List (QPL) in accordance with USDA, USFS Specification 5100-304d, Interim Amendment 1 (or latest revision), qualified through the Qualification Requirement (QR).

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, titled "Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements." Justification for other than full and open competition (JOFOC) is attached and will be posted in accordance with FAR 6.305.

This notice of intent is not a request for proposals or quotes. All interested and responsible sources, meeting the agency's requirement including meeting the conditional/interim qualification and be listed on the QPL as a conditional/interim qualified aerial LTFR product as stated above, may submit a capabilities statement, proposal, or quotation. All responses must be submitted to the Government primary point of contact at the contracting office address shown below. Any responses received within 15 calendar days of publication of this notice, shall be evaluated and considered by the agency. If no written responses are received within 15 calendar days of publication of this notice, the contract may be awarded without further notice. All successful responses from interested parties will be contacted by the Primary Point of Contact to ensure they receive all pertinent information necessary to complete an offer. A determination by the Government not to open the requirement to competition based upon the responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.

Please contact the Contracting Officer with any questions or concerns.