16_68HE0522R0035_JOFOC_VelsicolBurnPit__1.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION (JOFOC)

(68HE0522R0035)

1. Identification of the Agency and Contracting Activity

Requiring Office: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Region 5

Superfund and Emergency Management Division Superfund Resource &

Scientific Integrity Branch

Contracting Activity: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Region 5

Mission Support Division

Facilities, Grants and Acquisitions Management Branch Acquisition

Management Section

Address: 77 W. Jackson Blvd

Chicago, IL 606064

2. Nature and Description of the Action Being Approved

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) Region 5 seeks approval to enter into a new sole-source contract, without full and-open competition, with CH2M Hill Inc. (CH2M) for implementation of the Remedial Action (RA) at the Velsicol Burn Pit Superfund Site in St. Louis, Michigan.

3. Description of the Supplies or Services Required

EPA has a need to award a contract to implement the 2015 Record of Decision (ROD) and Michigan

Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) substantive requirement documents

(SRD) criteria. The RA includes the design, implementation, operation, monitoring, maintenance, and removal of an in-situ thermal treatment (ISTT) system at the Burn Pit Site. This specialized treatment system was in use at the adjacent Velsicol Chemical Superfund Site (Former Plant Site) under sole sourced site-specific contract 68HE0520C0005 which expires at the end of March 2023.

The Velsicol Chemical Corporation created and operated the Burn Pit as an offsite disposal area for

Former Plant Site industrial solid and liquid waste disposal and volume reduction. Therefore, contamination at both sites has waste-generator commonality. The Burn Pit Site consists of two operable units. These include:

• OU1 - source material, including nonaqueous phase liquid (NAPL)

• OU2 - groundwater contaminated by historical disposal operations at the site.

The source material (OU1) includes or contains hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants that act as a reservoir for migration of contamination to groundwater, surface water or air; or acts as a source for direct exposure. NAPL (OU1) at the Burn Pit Site is considered a principal threat waste. Principal threat wastes are defined as those source materials considered highly toxic or highly mobile that generally cannot be reliably contained or would present significant risk to human health or the environment should exposure occur.

The OU1 Burn Pit Site selected remedy will use ISTT to address the principal threat wastes and treat the highly concentrated source materials. Excavation with offsite disposal of remnant burn pit ash and debris is also necessary.

The following are the major components of the selected remedy and RA:

1. Site preparation and ancillary systems construction activities.

2. Excavation and offsite disposal of remnant burn pit ash/debris (approximately 1,000 cubic yards).

3. Implementation of ISTT on approximately 1.4 acres at depth to the till layer to remove NAPL and reduce contaminant concentrations within the soil matrix.

4. Concurrent with ISTT, treatment of extracted groundwater and soil vapor on-site.

5. Short-term groundwater monitoring. The final groundwater remedy will be selected as part of OU2, and long-term groundwater monitoring is anticipated as part of that future remedy.

6. Site Restoration

7. Institutional Controls

The RA at the Former Plant Site includes a multi-million-dollar treatment system for contaminated vapor and groundwater. This treatment system was constructed and operated by CH2M and subcontractor TerraTherm a Cascade Company (TerraTherm) under the previous contract and is planned to be used to treat Burn Pit Site contaminants. The Burn Pit Site is located across the Pine

River from and shares waste-generator commonality with the Former Plant Site. These two sites share a similar geology, hydrogeology, and the same contaminants of concern, and therefore, as follows, the same remedy: ISTT via thermal conductive heating (TCH) of the subsurface.

Given the considerable benefit to the Government, EPA is recommending the Burn Pit Site project use the existing Former Plant Site treatment system and equipment. This reuse of equipment can only be realized with the incumbent. If EPA were to compete a new contract it would require a contractor to start over with design and construction of a completely new and untested system, without reuse of the existing Former Plant Site ISTT components as these would be dismantled and removed at the conclusion of the Former Plant Site RA by CH2M/TerraTherm.

Total length of proposed contract is 28 calendar months. The estimated cost for this requirement is

$32,600,151.08

This decommissioning at the Former Plant Site is planned to begin in Early Spring 2023, if the services of the incumbent will not be granted under this JOFOC at the Burn Pit Site.

4. Identification of Statutory Authority Permitting Other Than Full and Open Competition

The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition relative to this request is 41

U.S.C. § 3304(a)(1): Only one responsible source and no other suppliers or services will satisfy agency requirements as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) § 6.302-1.

5. A statement demonstrating the unique qualifications of the proposed contractor or nature of the acquisition requiring the use of the authority cited.

CH2M is uniquely qualified to complete the ISTT remedy at the Burn Pit Site. As stated above, there is an existing treatment plant at the Former Plant Site that is built specifically for the contaminants of concern also found at the Velsicol Burn Pit Site. Electrical and other utilities are already present. The cost to replace this equipment is estimated at over $2,100,000.00. It is highly unlikely that this cost would be recovered through competition.

Additionally contracting with CH2M would give EPA the ability to shorten the RA schedule significantly by utilizing the existing infrastructure located at the adjacent property 2) CH2M experience with unique NAPL types and complex waste specific to Velsicol and novel ISTT delivery and 3) allow the work to be performed at a significant cost savings to the government. These factors are further detailed below:

1) Schedule:

ISTT is the selected remedy for the Burn Pit Site due to the large amount of NAPL present in soil and groundwater. The NAPL and the toxicity of the constituents within NAPL at the site, including chemicals which necessitate specialized worker protection, require the use of non-traditional technologies to address highly contaminated areas on the site. The ISTT system is designed specifically for Velsicol and is considered proprietary by TerraTherm, Jacob’s subcontractor.

Based on the experience described above, the incumbent could start the Burn Pit RA in Spring 2023 construction season and shorten the overall RA by one year. CH2M estimates that ISTT system construction can commence at the Velsicol Burn Pit Site approximately 12 weeks after award of a contract to deliver this project, with ISTT heating operations commencing in late spring 2023.

Competing a new contract would lengthen the RA start by at least one (1) year and a new contractor could potentially need an additional one (1) year to implement and complete the RA. Specifically, a new contractor would result in a significant increase in the length of time and resources for design of a new treatment system, construction of the system, operational start-up, and ongoing learning and problem shooting for the specialized (and untested) ISTT and the unique NAPL.

It is unlikely that CH2M and TerraTherm would be willing to keep the Former Plant Site treatment system idle or maintained, for the duration of a lengthy competitive bidding process, without knowing if the system and equipment would be used by their team in the future (the system and equipment at the Former Plant Site are currently planned for an early spring 2023 dismantling if services/contract are not extended).

2) Experience:

CH2M and TerraTherm are an integrated team with over five (5) years of experience working together at the adjacent Former Plant Site to successfully remediate contaminants through ISTT. These are the same contaminants found at the Burn Pit Site planned for remediation with the same remedy (ISTT).

The Velsicol-specific toxic NAPL cocktail (PBB, DDT and isomers, DBCP, and other brominated compounds) and associated contamination is unique to these two sites and has no comparable match.

Therefore, the already constructed and time-tested (with successful remediation) proprietary and site-specific ISTT design conducted by this contractor is a unique qualification that is an advantageous benefit for the Government to use at the Burn Pit Site.

There are additional advantages to the Government to redirect the incumbent contractors specialized equipment and trained technical resources, currently at the adjacent Former Plant Site, to implement the ISTT remedial action at the Burn Pit Site. CH2M has performed work successfully at the Former

Plant Site in different phases of the remedial program, through the EPA Region 5 RAC2 contract since

2009. As such, with this amount of site experience, CH2M is uniquely qualified to perform the work at the Burn Pit Site and will provide continuity and demonstrate efficient use of resources in RA experience from the Former Plant Site.

Specifically, this team’s experience includes successful completion of ISTT implementation and Phase

1 operations under RAC2 and they are currently nearing completion of Phase 2 operations, expected in late spring/early summer 2022 under a site-specific contract. The site-specific contract was sole sourced through a JOFOC to CH2M with TerraTherm as their subcontractor, based on forecasted cost savings and a streamlined schedule to complete the work than would have otherwise been realized from a competitive bid process. That work yielded a savings to the Government in excess of

$1.5 million and a shorter schedule that reduced risks to human health and the environment sooner.

Technical performance to date includes the successful removal of more than 320,000 pounds of principal-threat waste. This, along with subcontractor TerraTherm’s more than 20 years of experience supplying ISTT solutions for soil and groundwater remediation, make this prime and subcontractor team the most experienced and technically qualified to implement the Burn Pit Site remedy. The direct experience gained in the operation of ISTT equipment over five (5) years at the adjacent Former Plant

Site with equipment and approach is proven to be effective for both the contaminants and subsurface conditions at the Burn Pit Site.

Based on the current status of both the Former Plant Site and Burn Pit Site and the technical, contractual, and procurement synergies, there will be measurable benefit to the EPA by retaining the current project team and using the treatment system and various equipment already located at the Former Plant Site.

3) Cost:

Using this incumbent team would enable the use of synergies and efficiencies shared with the Former

Plant Site to significantly reduce costs. As described above in this document, there is a forecasted savings of approximately $1.97 million to reuse the Former Plant Site treatment system and equipment optimized for Burn Pit Site use and approximately $400,000 in forecasted savings to preserve and use the existing Former Plant Site gas and electric utility services.

The Former Plant Site consisted of Area 1, Area 2 Phase 1, and Area 2 Phase 2. The Former Plant Site treated 51,323 cubic yards (CY) of contaminated media at a total cost of $46,392,800.00. The cost per

CY was $903.94. The Velsicol Burn Pit site has an estimated treatment volume of 62,359 CY. The cost per CY is estimated to be $522.78 per CY.

Providing the Government with access to the existing contractor owned treatment system, site equipment, technical expertise gained during Former Plant Site ISTT, is the most responsible and cost-efficient approach for EPA to complete the ISTT remedy at the Burn Pit Site in the shortest duration. In addition, the cost per cubic yard is significantly lower due to the experience gained at the Former Plant

Site by CH2M.

6. Description of Efforts to Ensure that Offers are Solicited from as Many Potential Sources as

Practicable

As required by FAR 6.302-1(d)(2), the notice required by FAR 5.201 was published. A notice of intent to sole source was posted to SAM.gov and FedConnect on July 18, 2022 advising any interested party that believes it can meet the requirement described in the notice to provide evidence of their capability to fulfill the requirement. No capability statements or information was received.

Within 14 days after contract award, the agency will make publicly available the justification required under FAR 6.303-1 at the Government Point of Entry (GPE) https://www.sam.gov and on the agency website to remain posted for a minimum of 30 days as required by FAR 6.305.

https://www.sam.gov/

7. Determination of Fair and Reasonable Costs

The anticipated contract will require a detailed work plan including cost estimate with hours. Prior to issuing a contract, the Contracting Officer will ensure that the proposal is throughly reviewed, negotiated, and the price determined reasonable for the work to be performed. No award will be made unless the anticipated costs are determined fair and reasonable.

The Contracting Officer has concluded that none of the exceptions in FAR 15.403-1(b) applies to this proposed non-competitive action. Prices for the proposed contract are not based on adequate price competition nor set by law or regulation, are not commercial services, and a waiver cannot be justified.

Therefore, per FAR 15.403-4(a)(1)(iii), for this planned contract award wherein the anticipated agreed-upon price will exceed the current FAR established $2 million threshold for prime contracts, the

Contracting Officer will require the submission of certified cost or pricing data from the contractor.

The proposal will be evaluated in accordance with FAR 15.404 analysis requirements and procedures including cost analysis techniques such as verification of cost or pricing data and evaluation of cost elements, comparison of actual costs previously incurred and current costs on other contracts held by the contractor with the EPA. The EPA contracting office will also perform other means of rate verification using information obtained through agency internal sources, such as the Financial Analysis and Oversight Branch (FAOB) within EPA, and external sources such as the Defense Contract

Management Agency (DCMA) or the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA). More importantly, the

Contracting Officer will perform price analysis in addition to cost analysis to assure overall price reasonableness. The use of the above techniques and resources will ensure that the CO can determine a fair and reasonable price for the anticipated performance period(s).

8. A description of the Market Research conducted (see part 10) and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted

As described above, the circumstances of this requirement dictate that only one source can provide the level of quality for this work. These services are not available on GSA schedule contracts under FAR

Part 8 or any other mandatory sources. There are less than five (5) companies nationwide that provide this type of ISTT through TCH service and only one company, TerraTherm, that has experience remediating the Velsicol- specific NAPL and associated contaminants. CH2M has successfully provided the ISTT implementation at the Former Plant Site. This requirement is for completion of the adjacent

Burn Pit Site that would reuse the existing on-site vapor and liquid treatment system, retain the same technical approach, and preserve existing utility services from the Former Plant Site.

9. Any Other Facts Supporting the use of Other than Full and Open Competition

Public perception could be negative if a multi-million dollar treatment system on one side of the river

(Former Plant Site) is decommissioned and removed by EPA, only to have EPA rebuild a new multi-million dollar treatment system on the other side of the river (Burn Pit Site) for treatment of the same contaminants by the same waste generator. This is something that should be seriously considered within the framework of the demonstrated and substantial incumbent experience, and the significant schedule and cost savings that would be realized by using the incumbent team.

As discussed above in Paragraph 5, using the current Velsicol thermal treatment team, would result in a forecasted savings and a shorter completion schedule of the remedial action by approximately one

(1) year at the Burn Pit Site. These savings, particularly the schedule, will be favorably viewed by the local community residents, the City, and the elected officials that supported the landmark federal legislative funding package (the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law - BIL) that would be used to fund this

RA.

Residents in the surrounding community have voiced frustration that the Velsicol Burn Pit Site has been awaiting funding to start RA construction since the completion of the remedial design three (3) years ago. They will be expecting EPA to initiate construction immediately now that BIL funding is available for the Burn Pit site.

10. A listing of the sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition

CH2M Hill. No other firms expressed an interest in this procurement.

11. Proposed Actions to Overcome Barriers to Competition

This procurement is a unique circumstance that is taking advantage of existing infrastructure. EPA will provide competition on future requirements for this type of work utilizing the Agency’s multiple-award

Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity Remediation Environmental Services contract. This contract vehicle will allow for competition among multiple contract holders, which includes multiple small business entities, and joint ventures.

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

(68HE0522R0035)

APPROVED:

Pamela D. Legare Date

Director, Office of Acquisition Solutions (OAS)

Head of Contracting Activity and Senior Procurement Executive