Site Visit Canceled 5.4.20.pdf

May 4, 2020

Longshanks Project Site Visit Canceled

I am sorry to inform you that our forest management officers have directed us not to proceed with our planned site visit at this time. It appears that things will not change in terms of a possible site visit prior to the scheduled proposal due date for this project. We do not intend to postpone the due date or the start of work on this project. Therefore, at this time I am encouraging you to use the information you have available from the “betaSam” web site, including the project map and all other relevant documents and proceed to review the solicitation package and the conditions on the ground as soon as possible without the benefit of a site visit involving the Forest Service. The due date for the proposals remains as 5/21/2020.

We have reviewed the access to the project area and in general most roads are open and accessible by pick truck within the project area. Units accessed by road 14N11, including units 34,35 and the lower part of 36 and 38 are not accessible by vehicle because of brush growth and fallen trees. Similar access issues exist for units 80 and 88 off road 13N42E and units 77 and 78 on road 14N08F. Also, roads 13N73 and 13N74 that access several units are not entirely drivable. All main roads and most of the other secondary roads are open as of last week.

Once you have visited the project area and/or reviewed the solicitation Jim Ingram (Inspector), Jim Brown (COR) and Don Errington are available to respond to your questions. We would prefer that any questions be submitted in e-mails so that if necessary, all 3 of us can discuss your question in order to provide you with a correct and consistent response in writing. Our e-mail addresses are listed below. Craig Ericson is the Contracting Officer on this project and his e-mail address is also listed below and he would be available to respond to questions that are not particularly site specific in nature.

It will be my intent to post both your questions and our responses to the beta.sam.gov site. We believe this approach would be fair since we want all interested parties to have the same information.

We would like you to visit the project area as soon as possible so that if the Forest Service needs to visit a particular unit or review a particular situation on the ground we will have time to do that in order to provide you with a timely response prior to the planned due date on May 21st.

I wish we could have proceeded with the site visit because I know this is a large, important project with a large number and variety of tasks, but hopefully the above process will serve your needs and interests in an acceptable manner. If we unexpectedly do get permission to proceed once again with a site visit within the next 14 days, we may still attempt to schedule a field trip on short notice, but we cannot count on that occurring, thus we are proceeding as described above at this time.

If you have questions about the above, please e-mail me call us. 530-363-6120.

Don Errington, don.errington@usda.gov, 530-363-6120 Craig Ericson, craig.ericson@usda.gov, 530-559-6264 mailto:don.errington@usda.gov mailto:craig.ericson@usda.gov