SOLICITATION NOTICE
F -- Ecological Site Descriptions in Montana
- Notice Date
- 3/24/2005
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 541690
— Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Montana State Office, Federal Building, Room 443 10 East Babcock Street, Bozeman, MT, 59715-4704
- ZIP Code
- 59715-4704
- Solicitation Number
- AG-0325-S-05-0004
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- (1) Description of Work: The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture, has a clearly defined Policy on Range (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/ECS/graze/reg9500.html) which provides for many sustainable rangeland benefits, including ?continuing research and technology developments to enhance range conservation and productivity and to make optimum use of all range resources?. Developing and maintaining ecological site descriptions is one way to achieve this goal. NRCS policy and responsibilities for developing, correlating and describing rangeland ecological site descriptions are contained in NRCS National Range and Pasture Handbook and NRCS National Soil Survey Handbook. In order to accomplish this task, the NRCS will award a contract(s) that require the successful contractors to write selected, identified portions of ecological site descriptions in the following Performance Groups: (1)A. Performance Group 1: Rangeland Resource Unit (RRU) 44XS within the state of Montana. A map of the RRUs can be found at http://www.mt.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/ecs/range/ecolsites/44s.html. There are 17 sites to be completed in the Base Year. More sites may be identified for future years. Eight of these sites will require field data collection. Existing NRCS data for each site will be provided to the contractor. (1)B. Performance Group 2: Rangeland Resource Unit (RRU) 43BS within the state of Montana. A map of the RRUs can be found at http://www.mt.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/ecs/range/ecolsites/43bs.html. There are 16 sites to be completed in the Base Year. More sites may be identified for future years. Eight of these sites will require field data collection. Existing NRCS data for each site will be provided to the contractor. Sites that need additional data collected by the contractor will be identified after the contract(s) is awarded. Each of those 8 sites will need to have a minimum of 5 additional double sampling transects performed by the contractor. Appropriate NRCS data collection protocols will need to be adhered to. Those protocols can be found in Chapter 4, NRCS National Range and Pasture Handbook at ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/GLTI/technical/publications/nrph/nrph-ch4.pdf. Species composition and production will be determined using the Double Sampling method. Site location for double sampling transects will be coordinated with the contractor and NRCS specialists. Only sites approved by NRCS will be inventoried. The performance period for the base year begins June 27, 2005 and ends February 28, 2006. Options will also be included for the 2006 through 2007 inventories (3 years total). The Contractor shall acquire (from NRCS) and assemble all NRCS plot data, soil/ecological site correlation data, digital photos and type location coordinates. For sites in which field data collection is necessary, all transect forms (SCS-Range-417) will be delivered to the NRCS State Rangeland Management Specialist in original format at the end of the contract period. The Contractor shall use all data, combined with personal/professional knowledge of these ecosystems, NRCS Area Rangeland Management Specialist knowledge, and peer review group knowledge to write specific portions of each ecological site description for the 35 ecological sites identified separately. Ecological site descriptions must be written using recognized NRCS soil survey terminology. (2) Government Furnished Data: The NRCS will furnish rangeland transect information, type location data and digital photos to the contractor. All data furnished shall be returned in the same condition to NRCS upon completion of the contract. Field data collection will be required on roughly one-half of the ecological sites to be completed during the Base Year. Field data collection in the Option Years is anticipated on most sites identified. (3) Workload and Logistics: (3)A. For ecological sites that do not need field data collected: It is anticipated that one ecological site description will take approximately 30 hours to write the first draft, and approximately 10 hours to assemble all NRCS and peer group comments to develop the final draft. The bulk of the time will be in data assembly, review and fleshing-out the state and transition model with associated plant community narratives. NRCS will provide an MSWord template for the contractor to complete for each ecological site description. (3)B. For ecological sites that need field data collected: In addition to the work required under A, the contractor will also have to perform the following on 8 sites in each performance group. It is estimated that no more than 2 double sampling transects will be completed within a 10-hour day. This assumes that 2 sampling locations are relatively close to each other. There will also be additional time invested in working with the local NRCS specialist to secure landowner permissions to conduct sampling on private or tribal lands. The contractor will need to work closely with NRCS to determine appropriate field locations for data collection, and to access sites located on private land. Inventoried sites should have a similarity index greater than 70 percent. The contractor will be required to attend a week-long training session, July 5-8, 2005 at field and office locations at a location to be specified in the solicitation. This session is designed to familiarize the contractor with NRCS protocols, ecological site concepts, state and transition model development, and other items essential to the development of these descriptions. The contractor will be expected to work with all partners (NRCS, peer review group, etc) to gather as much knowledge about each ecological site as possible. The contractor will also be expected to read applicable peer-reviewed literature to include the latest technology and research into each description. Much of the work on these ecological site descriptions during the Base Year is anticipated to be indoor ?office? work. (4) Confidentiality Statement: In the event that field data needs to be collected to augment the ecological site description(s), the successful contractor(s) will be required to sign a confidential agreement for non-disclosure of confidential information relative to data site locations and/or use of composite data. This confidentiality statement is only necessary where actual field data is collected. The Statement of Work will identify the ecological sites where field data collection is needed, if at all. Specific field locations will be identified after the contract is awarded. (5) A solicitation for this effort will be issued on or about April 26, 2005.
- Place of Performance
- Address: Southwestern Montana
- Record
- SN00775380-W 20050326/050324211834 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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