C--Unrestricted Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity Contract for Soil Borings, Soil Testing and Geotechnical Design Support Services Within the Limits of the New Orleans District

Federal Business Opportunity Announcement Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Contract for Soil Borings, Soil Testing and Geotechnical Design Support Services within the limits of the New Orleans District 1. CONTRACT INFORMATION: This contract is being procured in accordance with the Brooks A-E Act as implemented in FAR Subpart 36.6. Firms will be selected for negotiation based on demonstrated competence and qualifications for the required work. North Amer ican Industrial Classification System (NAICS) Code is 541330. This is an UNRESTRICTED solicitation. All qualified business concerns may submit offers. Offers from large business firms must comply with FAR 19.7 and FAR Clause 52.219-9 regarding the require ment for submission of a subcontracting plan. The US Army Corps of Engineers FY 06 subcontracting goals are for specified percentages of the contractor's total planned subcontracting amount to be placed with the following: Small Business 51.2%; Small Disad vantages Business, 8.8%; Women-Owned Small Business, 7.3%; Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, 1.5%; and HUB Zone Small Business, 3.1%. To be eligible for contract award, a firm must be registered in the Department of Defense (DoD) Central Contr actor Registration (CCR) via the CCR Internet site at http://www.ccr.gov or by contacting the DoD Electronic Commerce Information Center at +1 (555) 000-0000. ATTENTION: Effective January 1, 2005, all contractors who submit an offer/bid is required to regis ter in the Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA). See FAR clauses 52.204-7 and 52.204-8 for requirement information. The web site for ORCA is http://orca.bpn.gov. ORCA registration replaces some of the Representations and Certific ations. An Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ), Firm-Fixed Price (FFP),contract will be negotiated and awarded with a base period not to exceed one year and two option periods not to exceed one year each. Anticipated award date on in or about N ovember 2006. Contract ceiling will not exceed $100,000,000 or 3 years in duration whichever comes first. $800,000 is guaranteed for the original contract period and $400,000 for option year one, and $200,000 for option year two. The Government reserves the right to exercise the contract options before the expiration of the base contract period or preceding option period, if the contract amount for the base period or preceding option period has been exhausted or nearly exhausted. The wages and benefits o f service employees (see FAR 22.10) performing under the resulting contract must be at least equal to those determined relative to the employees office location (not the location of the work). Work will be assigned by negotiated task orders. This announce ment is open to all businesses regardless of size. If a large business is selected for this contract it must comply with FAR 52.219-9 regarding the requirement for a subcontracting plan for work it plans to subcontract. The plan is not required with this s ubmittal. The primary purpose of this proposed contract is to provide services for projects located within the geographic boundaries of the New Orleans District. Secondarily, this contract may be used to provide services within the geographic boundaries of any other U.S. Army Corps of Engineers District. The contractor will have the right to refuse orders for services to be performed outside the geographic boundaries of the New Orleans District. 2. PROJECT INFORMATION: Work will consist of: (a) Field assignments may include locating borings in the field and providing location information consisting of elevation, latitude and longitude, and station and offset; making soil borings and sealing bore holes; setting permanent bench marks as well as installing piezometers, slope inclinometers, wells, settlement plugs, and settlement plates. Conducting pile driving analysis, obtaining subsurface information by using cone penetrometer and perf orming noise and vibration monitoring. Hand auger, soil probe, general type (3-inch x 42-inch thin wall Shelby tube), split spoon and 5-inch x 4.5-foot undisturbed fixed-piston type methods are to be used in the soil boring operations. Samples from the t hin wall Shelby tube and split spoon samplers must have a minimum diameter of 2-7/8 inches ID and 1-3/8 inches ID respectively. Some borings will require hard access (marsh, swamp or heavily forested areas) and work over water requiring special equipment. Samples must be delivered promptly to the testing lab, either Government or A-E, as specified by the task order. All sampling equipment including the sampling head device for 5-inch diameter sampling, 5  inch diameter sample tubes, and sample extruder f or five (5) inch undisturbed borings will be furnished by the Contractor. Corps representative will inspect field operations to verify geotechnical investigations are being performed in accordance with Corps EM 1111-1-1804. (b) Testing laboratory and sto rage facility shall be established within 50 road miles of the New Orleans District once the contract has been awarded. Testing laboratory assignments may include classifying, determining water content and atterberg limits, performing unconfined compressio n tests, performing (Q) and (R) triaxial compression shear tests; performing direct shear (S) tests, consolidation tests, mechanical grain size and hydrometer analysis; performing 15-blow and 25-blow compaction tests on selected samples; computing and comp iling test results; furnishing boring and laboratory data in both text and CADD files fully compatible with the Intergraph/Bentley MicroStation CADD software (Version 8) and in the form of plotted boring logs. The A-E contractor will perform extruding of 5-inch undisturbed samples under controlled lab environment. Laboratory soil testing shall be performed in accordance with Corps EM 1110-2-1906. Other ASTM tests may be assigned. (c) Design assignments may include selection of design parameters; stability analyses of levees, reinforced embankments, dikes and other earthen structures; stability analyses of slopes for revetments, channels and excavations; pile capacity curves; settlement analyses; cantilevered, anchored, and braced sheet pile analyses; beari ng capacity determinations; retaining and flood walls analyses; seepage analyses; dewatering design, ground water study and operation and interpretation of data obtained from A-E provided pile driver analyzer. Design plates will be furnished as paper copi es and as MicroStation compatible design files. (d) Geotechnical engineering services during construction; geotechnical engineer and technician will be stationed on site for consultation and material testing. 3. SELECTION CRITERIA: See Note 24 for general selection process. The selection criteria are listed below in order of precedence. Criteria (a) thru (h) are primary. Criteria (i) thru (j) are secondary and will be used only as tie-breakers among technically equal firms. (a) Specialized work experience and technical competence of the firm and its key personnel to perform the services listed above. (b) Capacity (personnel and equipment) to accomplish work in the required time. Provide the following minimum personnel to perform work: ten (10) 4-person drill crews; five (5) 2-person survey crews; capacity to produce 50 triaxial 3 point UU tests and 1 00 atterberg limits per day; twelve (12) Registered Professional Engineers specialized in Geotechnical Engineering practice; twelve (12) engineering/soils lab technicians; and four (4) CADD draftspersons. Demonstrate capacity to produce CADD drawings util izing CADD programs fully compatible with the Intergraph/Bentley MicroStation CADD software, Version 8. Provide the following minimum equipment to be utilized for the project: Ten (10) core drill rigs with off road access capability (undisturbed drill ri g Failing 1500 or equivalent), four (4) pile driving ana lyzers, four (4) soil probes, two (2) cone penetrometers, ten (10) vibration monitoring devices, five (5) noise monitoring devices, ten (10) triaxial test cells, twenty (20) consolidometers, two (2) direct-shear machines and two (2)direct-simple shear mach ines. Provide adequate temperature controlled space for storage of undisturbed samples before testing. (c) Professional qualifications necessary for satisfactory performance of required services. Firm must have a Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) water well contractor license and the soil testing laboratory must / will need to b e validated by Corps of Engineers Material Testing Center, in accordance with ER 1110-1-261 (dated 28 Apr 1999) and ER 1110-1-8100 (dated 31 December 1997), at Vicksburg, MS. (d) Knowledge of geology and geographic area within the limits of the New Orleans District. (e) Past performance on Department of Defense and other contracts with respect to cost control, quality of work and compliance with performance schedules. (f) Safety plan outline and past performance (man-hours lost to accidents in the last 100,000 man-hours of work by firm). (g) Quality control plan outline. (h) Extent of participation of small businesses, small disadvantaged businesses, women-owned small businesses, veteran-owned small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, HUB Zone small businesses, historically black colleges and unive rsities, and minority institutions on the proposed contract term as measured as a percentage of the estimated effort. (i) Location of the design firm in the general geographical of the anticipated projects and the New Orleans Distrct Headquarters. (j) Volume of DoD A-E Contract Awards in the last 12 months with the objective of affecting an equitable distribution of DoD A-E contracts among qualified firms, including SB and SDB. 4. SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: See Note 24 for general submission requirements. Interested firms, which meet the requirements described in this announcement, are invited to submit 5 copies of SF 330 2004 (SF 330 replaced both SF 254 and SF 255 which are no l onger accepted) for the prime firm and all subcontractors and consultants to the address below not later than 4:30 p.m. on September 6,2006. In Block E of the SF 330, include an organizational chart, equipment requirements, the use of subcontractors or con sultants and describe the firm's design quality control plan, including coordination of subcontractors and consultants. Complete Safety Plan will be required after contract award. Safety performance data (person-hours lost) must be submitted including data for any subcontractors. A detailed Quality Control Plan must be received and approved by the Government prior to contract award. For Overnight or courier deliveries, the physical address is U.S. Army Engineer District, New Orleans, 7400 Leake Avenue, AT TN: CEMVN-CT-W, Room 184, New Orleans, LA 70118-1030. This is not a Request for Proposal. Refer to Solicitation No. W912P8-06-R-0209.