A02.12 PWS Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River Resiliency dated 2024.07.06.docx

Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) – Acquisition Sensitive 07 Jun 2024 Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Resiliency Report Great Lakes Adaptive Management Committee

PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT (PWS)

1. BACKGROUND and PURPOSE

On January 16, 2015, the International Joint Commission (IJC) issued a Directive establishing the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Adaptive Management (GLAM) Committee which reports to the three Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Boards (Superior, Niagara and Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence Boards). The GLAM Committee is to carry out the required monitoring, modelling and ongoing assessment of the regulation plans and address other questions that may arise due to changing conditions, in consultation with the Boards. In the summer of 2019, the IJC requested the GLAM Committee begin planning for an expedited review of Plan 2014 with the goal of further moderating flooding that occurred because of record water supplies to the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system in 2017 and 2019. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) serves on the GLAM committee as technical representatives.

GLAM has now entered the 2nd phase of the expedited review, which will more closely evaluate Plan 2014 and its limits and triggers to determine whether changes should be made. Part of the plan evaluation is to study the resiliency of the Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River basin. Establishing a baseline understanding of the current system’s ability to withstand, adapt, and respond to fluctuating water levels is the goal.

Resiliency is defined here, as taken from Great Lakes Commission Resilience Action Plan: a resilient Great Lakes Basin is one in which communities, infrastructure, ecosystems, and the economy can withstand, adapt to, and recover from climate related stressors and changing conditions to ensure equitable and inclusive social, economic, and environmental well-being across the basin. Identifying resilient characteristics, practices, rules, and regulations in regions of the basin will provide a baseline comparison in evaluating Plan 2014 for Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system and for any future work.

IWR, in partnership with the USACE Detroit District, seeks services and support in assessing and reporting on the current resiliency efforts of the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River system in support of evaluating Plan 2014 performance.

2. SCOPE

To support the evaluation of Plan 2014, the contractor shall conduct a search of Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River (LOSLR) basin resiliency activities along the New York shoreline (from the mouth of the Niagara River to the St. Lawrence River at the Ontario/Quebec border) to develop a comprehensive list of significant efforts to enhance resilience to fluctuating water levels and flows. The Contractor will create a summary description of each effort, and, with support and guidance from the GLAM Resiliency Steering Committee, develop a catalog of current resilience efforts. This would establish a baseline for the LOSLR system, which can help to facilitate future assessments of resiliency work. In addition, the Contractor would identify examples within water-use themes with high resiliency and active climate resiliency planning, programs, and model actions or practices, to showcase local initiatives through the means of developed case studies. Water use themes may include coastal riparian, commercial navigation, recreational boating/facilities, ecosystems, municipal and industrial water uses, and hydropower or any other use.

The contractor shall compile the findings and analysis into a final report and presentation including a parallel effort in the Ontario and Quebec portion of the basin. Final report synthesis shall withhold comparison between the separate governed bodies and not conduct any gap analysis.

3. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

The following sub-sections supply details of various general requirements for this effort.

3.1. Non-Personal Services

The contractor shall provide strictly non-personal services and contractor employees are not subject to direct supervision and control by the Government. The contractor shall advise and support the Government but shall not make final decisions or certifications on behalf of the Government nor perform any inherently governmental functions. The contractor and its employees shall not represent the Government nor appear to represent the Government in performance of these contract services. Contractor personnel shall clearly identify themselves as contractor employees in all interactions during contract performance.

3.2. Place of Performance

Work will be performed at the contractor’s physical site.

3.3. Period of Performance

The period of performance is from date of Notice to Proceed (NTP) through six (6) months.

3.4. Materials

All materials bought by the contractor with funds from this task order and used under this task order, become, and remain the property of the Government.

3.5. Travel

No travel for meetings or presentations is anticipated.

3.6 SECURITY and Safety

The work will be UNCLASSIFIED and network or facility access is not required. Contractor access supporting meetings at a government site shall be coordinated by the government technical point of contact (TPOC) or the contracting officer representative (COR). The contractor(s) will not require a Common Access Card (CAC).

Contractor Compliance: The contractor and its subcontractors shall comply with Public Law 91-596 (Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)) and the Environmental, Safety, and Occupational Health (ESOH) (DODD 4715.1E). These requirements shall be incorporated into the contractors’ safety and health program. The Department of Defense (DoD) takes part in the OSHA Voluntary Protection Program (VPP). Contractor personnel performing services on a DoD installation shall take part in the local VPP. Information on the VPP is available at www.osha.gov/dcsp/vpp/index.html.

Mishap Notification and Investigation: The contractor and its subcontractors (if applicable) shall promptly report pertinent facts regarding mishaps involving Government property damage or injury to Government personnel and to cooperate in any resulting safety investigation. The contractor shall notify (via telephone) the cognizant contracting officer, the contracting officer’s representative, and/or other applicable members within four (4) hours of all mishaps or incidents. The Government person notified by the contractor will in-turn notify the Safety office. Contractor notifications made after duty hours shall be reported to the appropriate installation Command Post. If requested by the cognizant contracting officer, the contracting officer’s representative, and/or the cognizant program manager, the contractor shall immediately secure the mishap scene/damaged property and impound pertinent maintenance and training records until released by the investigating safety office. If the Government investigates the mishap, the contractor and the subcontractors shall cooperate fully and assist the Government personnel until the investigation is completed.

4. PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS (TASK AREAS)

Seven tasks are included.

Task 1: Initial call to kick off the project and discuss the scope of work, project progress, timelines and direction as required.

Task 2: Identify and catalog, at various levels of government (Federal/Provincial, including Conservation Authorities, State, local) and water use themes, relevant policies, regulations, laws, programs, projects, reports, funding schemes, action plans, and strategies to enhance resiliency to fluctuating water levels on Lake Ontario – St. Lawrence River. Contractors will use a multifaceted approach to collect baseline information on the resilience work in New York state. Methods will include but are not limited to literature reviews, interviews, database and internet mining. Methods will not include a comparison between the State/ Province jurisdictions, or gap analyses.

Task 3: Develop a comprehensive list in a catalog format (i.e. Excel or Access database) of resiliency activities identified in the search. Create a summary description of the resiliency activities identified, including geographic coordinates of the identified activities.

Task 4: Identify examples of local themes with high resiliency and active climate resiliency planning, programs, and model actions or practices, to showcase local initiatives through the means of developed case studies. Consult with the Steering Committee about identified themes.

Task 5: Contractor will hold regular reoccurring meetings (approximately every 4 – 6 weeks) with Resiliency Steering Committee as agreed to by the Steering Committee and Contractor to discuss project progress and direction. Include a final meeting to present contractor’s findings and a summary of the final report.

Task 6: Develop and complete a final report that synthesizes all cataloged resiliency programs details for each jurisdiction. Append cataloged tables and data that identify efforts to increase resilience to fluctuating water levels within jurisdictions and themes from Task 2.

Task 7: Compile a final and comprehensive binational report from the multiple reports, including Ontario and Quebec, for the state of resiliency in the LOSLR basin.

5. DELIVERABLES AND DELIVERY SCHEDULE

The table below shows a set of deliverables that are required for EACH TASK described in Section 4 of this task order.

6. PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS SUMMARY (PRS)

7. APPLICABLE DOCUMENTS

N/A

8. CONTRACTING OFFICER REPRESENTATIVE AND/OR TECHNICAL POINT OF CONTACT (TPOC)

A contracting officer representative (COR) and/or technical point of contact (TPOC) will be appointed on this task order. The COR and TPOC have no authority to direct the contractor in any way to alter the contractual obligation. The contracting officer is the only individual authorized to make changes to the contract.