B09_Amend_0002_YELL_338223_-_Pre-Proposal_Conference_Transcripts_0002.pdf

YELL 338223 - Pre-Proposal Conference- 20261008_090018-Meeting Recording

October 8, 2026, 3:00PM 27m 24s

Baker, Jennifer K started transcription

Murphy, Shellie A 0:03 Go ahead and go to the next slide.

So you see the agenda on the page on the screen. I'm not going to, you know, read every single thing on it. You all will get a copy of this via an amendment. So you'll be able to go back through and take a look at it. But the first thing I would like to do is introductions. Again, Shelly Murphy, Contracting Officer, Denver Service Center out of out of Colorado, John.

Kotchian, John D 0:41 Good morning, everybody. John Kochen here. I'm the contract specialist on the project. Good to meet everybody. I'll go ahead and turn it over to Owen.

Baker, Jennifer K 0:51 Owen's actually not on today. He is the project manager on the project. I'm Jen Baker, project specialist. Both Owen and I are out of the Denver Service Center. And then not with us today is our Yellowstone Park point of contact, Sally Barton Dale.

Murphy, Shellie A 0:52 Owen, yeah.

Thanks, everybody. And really, Sally will be involved once we award great point of contact for the park. And then I will also, along with in the amendment with these slides, obviously put out the attendees and any other information needed. Obviously, the purpose of this call, of this meeting is to kind of high level go over expectations of the project, some critical areas of the bridges, of the work required.

any work restrictions and whatnot. And then at the, so what I'll do is after this next slide, I'll hand it over to Jen, and then afterwards we'll finalize it, rounding off the last slide with contracting and questions.

Other than that, I'll hand it over to you.

Baker, Jennifer K 2:07 Okay, thanks, Shelly. My computer is quite slow this morning, so it might take a second for a slide to actually change. So generally under this contract, the work will be for preservation of three existing bridges in Yellowstone. Their category DC be bridges. For funding, high expectations that funds will be available and contract will be awarded. The general scope of work for in-water pieces includes scour mitigation and erosion repair and temporary stream diversions. For out of water work elements, we have concrete spall repairs.

Kris Anderson 2:47 Pet Shelley, I don't know about anyone else, but I can't hear Jen.

I don't know if it's on my end, but I can hear you just fine.

Murphy, Shellie A 2:55 Oh, that's, yeah, I can hear Jen. Anybody else having issues?

Kotchian, John D 3:01 I can hear Jen as well. I can hear everybody.

Ford Ayat 3:04 Yeah, I can hear everybody.

Murphy, Shellie A 3:08 Chris, you may have to log back in, maybe.

Kris Anderson 3:12 Alright, I'll try that.

Murphy, Shellie A 3:14 Okay, alright.

Baker, Jennifer K 3:17 Do you want me to pause, Shelly, or keep going?

Murphy, Shellie A 3:21 No, go ahead and keep going. I think Tom.

Was on also, so.

Baker, Jennifer K 3:27 Okay.

Um...

So for our out of water work elements, concrete, spall repairs, bridge deck concrete overlay, repair and repointing of stone masonry, scour countermeasure placements, hydro demolition, bridge concrete, deck repairs, joint sealing and repairs, painting, removal of temporary bridge rail, railing repair, use of containment systems, asphalt paving, pavement markings, and traffic control activities. So the structures are a little bit disparate within the park itself.

to the structures, Unnamed and Thumb Creek are in the southern part of the park near Yellowstone Lake. And they'll actually, the way that these plans were set up is that because they're so close in proximity, it'll be one work zone for those two structures.

And then Lava Creek Bridge is up near the north entrance. Closest town is Gardner outside the park. And then of course, Mammoth Springs is right there as well. And then closest town for facilities, lodging, et cetera, is the West Yellowstone near the west entrance.

We've included park map and information here just to give folks an idea of how long it takes to get from different parts of the park. And this is idealized conditions.

Sometimes there will be animal jams and it will double your drive time. So Planning ahead for, you know, maybe earlier starts when you're going to be hauling in material outside of peak traffic hours is really important.

So there's a lot of work happening in Yellowstone right now. There is the wastewater and water treatment plant work that would be somewhat adjacent to thumb and unnamed. And then the biggest, I think, not impact, but adjacency to The bridge that's on the north side of the park, Lava Creek, is the Gardner River High Bridge Project, which will have pretty consistent construction traffic going over Lava

Creek Bridge for that project. So there may be some coordination we'll have to do.

Yellowstone's pretty proactive about having those conversations so that either project is not negatively impacted. Heavy conversations about that during the design. So we'll just have to make sure we're on top of like our look ahead schedules, deliveries, things like that. Anything that would require like longer traffic holds. That way that's communicated to the other contractors that they can plan accordingly as well. For our work restrictions, work hours are generally 7 A.m. to 7 P.m. or one hour before sunset, whichever is sooner.

Monday through Friday, weekend and early morning work may be permitted upon request and approval by the CO. Lane closures will not be permitted on federal holidays. And then there are a few other items, but pretty minor things. So refer to the specs for any additional time of year day restrictions.

And then just below is the spec noted for a complete list of contractor use of premises and other work restrictions.

Murphy, Shellie A 7:19 So Jen, I do want to touch, if you can go back.

Baker, Jennifer K 7:22 Yeah, yep.

Murphy, Shellie A 7:23 I do want to touch on the work hours. I know there's a lot of other projects that...

construction contractors assume that they'll be able to get approval to work earlier. I can tell you that Yellowstone is very strict on that. And sometimes they're flexible, but please don't, when you're putting your pricing together, please don't assume that you'll get that approval.

I just wanted to make sure that...

I emphasize that because I think some people assume that. So, all right. Thanks, Jen.

Baker, Jennifer K 7:59 Yeah.

So for traffic control, obviously heavy visitation in Yellowstone. So there's a lot more language in our contract than you would normally see on some other federal projects. So for lane closures, the contractor is required to provide the park representative 4 weeks advance notice to allow the NPS time for notifications out to the public. For unnamed Creek and Thumb Creek bridges, the one lane traffic encompasses both bridges for that work zone, and the maximum hold time in either direction is 10 minutes. If night work is requested, provide 14 days notice. Work cannot be allowed if it occurs when the campground is open. There is a campground that's somewhat close to those bridges, but I don't see there.

being necessarily a need for night work, but if it's, you know, desired, obviously, we put the language in there to accommodate that. If a closure is requested, please provide 28 days notice. The closure must be scheduled between 1 A.m. and 5 A.m.

And then for Lava Creek, one lane traffic is allowed with a maximum hold time in either direction of 10 minutes. If night work is requested, please provide a 14 days notice. This one, I think we're all good with any of the closures that were done this past year for Gardner River hybrid.

But this one would be more sensitive, obviously, if the other contractor might be doing some night work as well. Contractor to coordinate with the CO and park representative for any park passes for their contracting staff and allow 14 days for passes to be printed and distributed to your personnel.

Wildlife. Migratory birds, the park reps will do the bird surveys. They need at least a 14 day notice given to the CO for when bird surveys are needed. For vegetation and clearing, there is the, in the specs, It should be cleared first by, I think we know that there will be a Yellowstone veg tech out there, and they'll help approve which trees to be taken down, but perform approved vegetation and tree removals between August 16th and February 28th.

If bald eagles, golden eagles, peregrine falcon, or the ferruginous hawk nest are observed within one mile of the project, notify the CO immediately. For bighorn sheep, they're observed within the project area. Suspend operations and notify the CO immediately. Also the park personnel at the same time.

And then we'll coordinate what activities happen when. I've never seen this happen, but if it does, they're very sensitive species within the park, so we want to act immediately on that. This is on Thumb Creek.

So the cutthroat trout, we want to avoid any work that would disturb the cutthroat trout spawning. And that's just anything that would be like in water work essentially.

And not that there is technically in water work elements on the structure, but the culvert cleaning could potentially impact the cutthroat trout if there's any sediment that made its way down to the water. So we just want to avoid that activity between April 15th and July 15th.

For bears and wolves, notify the CEO immediately if a bear or wolf remains within 650 feet of the construction activities, any carrion or roadkill within 650 feet of construction activities, or suspend operations where there is a potential human-animal conflict.

The CO will inform the contractor when work can resume in those areas.

For cultural resource protection, no disturbance of historic or cultural features shall occur, no artifacts shall be collected, and if archaeological or historic resources are discovered, work shall stop at the discovery site. The discovery shall be protected as required, and the cultural resource specialist shall be notified as soon as possible.

Information and photographs regarding the location, size, and nature of discovery should be provided. If any previously unidentified cultural materials are discovered during construction, work in the area shall halt immediately. And this just goes through the remaining steps. These are previously disturbed site, so it's pretty low anticipation that any of this would actually happen.

for an in-person site visit.

It's getting late in the season. I think there is weather moving in soon to the park. So we'd want to get the following information to provide letters of access to any contractor who would like to visit the structures. We would want that information by Wednesday, October 14th.

by 2 P.m. mountain time, that would be sent to Shelly and John. And then just a reminder to plan your visit. Visitation is kind of dwindling right now, so not as much of an issue for drive times. But I believe the roads to some of the bridges will be shut down.

I think starting on Halloween.

or if snow comes first. And then for parking at these three bridges, you can park in the identified staging areas of each structure. Just make sure you have sufficient pull-off space. And if you have, not that there are many shoulders in Yellowstone, but if it's like a little dirt pull off, make sure that your tires are not on the fog line and they're completely out of the roadway. And then make sure to use appropriate PPE.

All right, so now I'm going to flip to the plans.

See here.

and just kind of run through them. They're pretty well.

presentation mode. Structured for just erosion and sediment control is like the first part of each structure and then we'll go into the work items with pictures, typical pictures of the work itself.

And then the last half of the plans is...

the details for each of the different types of repairs. So this is the cover sheet, which you saw in the presentation. I'm going to scroll here. This sheet G03 calls out your available staging area.

I don't think we have the name of this, but this staging area, but for like larger things like containers and trailers and things like that, this space noted here is available. It's just past them and unnamed for contractor staging. And then.

As I previously noted, we anticipate thumb and unnamed to be 1 continuous work zone. And then there are a couple pullouts, smaller pullouts that can hold, I don't know, 5 vehicles each, and maybe some material if you're prepping it to bring it.

to do some work at the structures itself.

And then Lava Creek there.

I don't know what happened to that. It's noted in here, but this area here, oh, it's right there, is the, this is the stage. It's a little picnic area. It'll be closed to the public while contractors in there working.

And then we just have these typical erosion and sediment control sheets for each structure. I will say this one, there was a tree in the stream that Park has since removed that caused a lot of the scour at the structure. It's a pretty low clearance structure, a lot of wetlands on the corners.

Ford Ayat 16:47 The.

Baker, Jennifer K 16:54 So.

pretty limited access paths to get down and complete the work here on the south side of the structure.

Okay, we give our typical section. We are also going to provide as-builts with this amendment for each of the structures. Let's see here. So for Lava Creek, we're doing some riprap work. We are cleaning and painting the railings.

All 3 structures did test positive for lead-based paint, and that's noted in the specifications. We have some stabilization of the guard walls.

Removing and replacing concrete curbs and approaches, repair of the curb. It's in pretty poor condition. Repointing the masonry over here, mill and overlay of the bridge deck. Cleaning and painting the bottoms of the exposed steel girders on the bridge.

replacing some of the deteriorated concrete on the abutment bearing seats, and then repairing some of the concrete spalls on the bridge deck, and then restraping as well.

I would say that lava has more work elements than thumb and unnamed. It's also, there is, let me go back to the over sheet, view sheet. There is a trail that people access on this side. So I think we note it in the plans here, but we'll need to coordinate with the park, how they want us to block that off because this is technically the parking area for that, I believe, unless they want folks parking in some other pull outs and then walking along the road to access it. So just something to be aware of.

Okay, and then for Thumb Creek.

So we do have on the west side of both them and unnamed, we have concrete barrier that park has installed. And in this contract, contractor can use these barriers to perform work on the railings and the overhangs. And then we also note in the contract to have the contractor move the barrier up to the Arnica pit, which is noted in the plans. I did find one text error in the details, which we're going to upload these updated plans. I'll just go to that.

real quick here. Sorry.

So on detail 10 of them and I believe detail 8 of unnamed.

Did a little revision here because we had previously noted that it was both sides of the bridge that there is barrier, but there's actually only one side and it's the west side of the structures.

Um...

Okay, so for thumb and unnamed, we have some tree removal. So this is what will require coordination. There unfortunately is whitebark pine. And I believe it is at Thumb Creek here. And it is right in the thick of the trees that need to be removed. So we will have someone from the park on site during the whole time of tree removal, just to make sure that we're not harming any of the whitebark pines. And they'll make sure like when we go out to mark off, access and everything that everyone's aware of, which ones are the whitebark pine.

And then I think the biggest element of work on this is going to be the repairing the overhangs and reattaching those curbs. They're pretty compromised, as you can see here in the picture.

Um...

And this is also, this picture was taken before the railing was on the bridge to protect it and prevent people from going over. And then we have remove and paint the railing, replace the asphalt at the bridge approaches, and then hydro demo and overlay of the bridge deck. Repair concrete at the abutment diaphragms. And this is the one with the clean culvert. We also have repair of some of this erosion on the slope of the structure. Replace the existing expansion joints.

Some small repairs, restoring. FHWA had a project and I don't think there was.

a thought to put back the curb cuts in, but that's one of the work elements here is to open the curb face back up so that this drainage whale can do its job and take water away from the bridge. Cleaning of that culvert pipe rundown.

This one will require coordination with park biologists, but there is an existing raven's nest on this bridge as well. So we just want to make sure that if it is in use, the birds have fledged and then we can take it down and clean the area. Restripe.

The bridge after bridge deck work is done, repair the abutment back wall, repair the expansion joints, and then some epoxy crack injections.

See, pretty similar work elements on unnamed as well.

Um...

And this is where we have whitebark. Oh, it is unnamed, sorry, not thumb, that we have the whitebark pine. And the specs go into pretty good detail about protection of those.

Let's see.

Again, we have the barrier on one side of the structure.

More overhang work, both unnamed and thumb were constructed in the same year.

So a lot of the deterioration you'll see is similar between the structures. And then we have remove railing as well, hydro demo, repair on the abutments.

placing slope protection beneath some of the deck trains.

repairing some of the undermining and erosion at the south abutment footing.

Again, we've made that correction about where the barriers are on the structure, only on one side, striping and some additional concrete.

repairs on the deck and then we just get into the details. So let me flip back to the presentation.

Okay, I'll hand it back to you, Shelley.

Murphy, Shellie A 24:47 Perfect. Thanks, Jen. That was a lot of information, really good information. So thanks for talking about all of that. Any questions? I don't typically like to take questions during this call only because I want to make sure that If you have a question, it needs to be submitted, right? And then also we can get the correct answer and then send it out via amendment to everybody interested in the project. So please make sure that you e-mail myself and John. I actually already posted an amendment.

out to Sam.gov. In the solicitation, I incorrectly put the questions due to us was 25 October, so the amendment corrects it to 15 October, which is next week.

So please make sure that you have those questions to us by the 15th. Does that mean that you can't submit after? No, it doesn't. However, I can't guarantee that those questions would be answered in a timely fashion. So again, 15 October by 2 P.m. Mountain Time.

Other than that, I have nothing else. More than likely, the amendment to include this, the transcripts, this presentation slides, and also the as-built and whatnot, that probably won't go out until Tuesday more than likely.

So just keep an eye out and you'll get those with the amendment.

Other than that, that's all we have. I appreciate everybody's time and...

and being on the call. Thanks.

Baker, Jennifer K 26:40 Thank you.

Nash Hale 26:44 Thank you.

Baker, Jennifer K stopped transcription