A16__JOFOC_Open_Market_Under_250k_SAT--_Detection_Dog_Surveys_-_Redacted_1.pdf

Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition Bureau of Land Management

FAR 13.106-1(b)(1) Simplified Acquisitions

PR: 40558307

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting office.

Bureau of Land Management, California Desert District, 1202 Bird Center Drive, Palm Springs, CA

2. Description of supply or service required to meet the agency’s needs.

The BLM requires the expertise of a team to implement surveys for wildlife mortalities (birds and bats) associated with wind turbines using detection dogs following rigorous scientific protocols.

The contract action will be a follow-on single source purchase order with the incumbent contractor for a fixed prices contract for 5 months of survey and up to 3 additional months for data QA/QC and submission. This survey is needed to evaluate the effects of wind turbine repowering with turbine replacement of numerous smaller turbines with substantially fewer, but larger, turbines to generate the same or more MW of energy and compare the potential changes of mortality rates.

3. The rationale or circumstances for limiting competition.

The incumbent have been collecting this same data, using the same protocol, in this exact location as part of this study for the last 4 years. This last 5 months of survey is needed due to delayed operational capabilities of the replaced turbines.

While there are potentially 3 other known contractors that are capable of doing this kind of survey, changing survey teams mid-study could undermine the Bureau’s ability to complete our analysis of data collected. Scientific surveys are known to have an observer bias and using a different survey team would introduce a confounding factor into the analysis of this study that will be conducted by BLM and UGSG. If we were to switch contractors and then document differences, we may not be able to attribute whether these differences are related to the change in turbines or the change in survey teams. BLM has invested more than $500,000 towards understanding wildlife mortalities from wind turbines and are using these investments to create new knowledge and understanding of the effects of repowering. We do not want to lose the value of our previous work by adding the potential confounding factor of changes in observational bias.

There would be decrease efficiency in study implementation, increases in time to become familiar with the study location, the study plots, study specific survey protocols.

http://farsite.hill.af.mil/reghtml/regs/far2afmcfars/fardfars/far/13.htm#P129_17809