Technical Support for Developing and Approving Water Quality Standards and Criteria

The U.S. EPA intends to negotiate on a sole source basis, under the authority of the FAR 6.302-1 with Horsley Witten, Incorporated, to provide support services to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Science and Technology (OST), Standards and Health Protection Division (SHPD) under contract titled "Technical Support for Developing and Approving Water Quality Standards", EP-C-12-006, by one additional month, until March 31, 2017. No additional hours or dollars are needed for the proposed one-month extension. In the Standards and Health Protection Division (SHPD), under the Office of Science and Technology (OST), within EPA's Office of Water (OW), the National Branch (NB), and the 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. This technical support includes the following activities: 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. EPA believes that Horsley Witten Incorporated, with its experience in working the current contract, is uniquely qualified for this short term additional effort and Horsley Witten Incorporated is the only responsible source able to perform this 1-month effort due to its combination of expertise, knowledge of the equipment and facilities, and familiarity with ongoing projects required to meet EPA's critical deadlines. THIS NOTICE IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS. However, any firm believing itself capable of meeting this EPA requirement must submit technical documentation to establish its assertion. This documentation must be submitted to the POC within 15 days of the electronic posting of this notice. Telephone requests will not be honored. A determination not to compete the proposed requirement based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the EPA. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement or to proceed on a sole source basis. The anticipated award date for this modification to the existing contract is February 28, 2017.