Response_to_Questions_and_Comments_on_BAER_Seeding_and_Mulching_Draft_RFP_(3).docx

Questions and Comments on BAER Seeding and Mulching Draft RFP, AG-84N8-S-14-0022

1. Transit certificates:

Transit certificates mean different things in different states. Each task order must clearly define what is expected. Please keep in mind if a Transit Certificate is required and it is a document issued by a County inspector present when each truck is loaded, this will affect the overall schedule. For example, only loading during weekdays between 8 and 5. There will also be an added expense to have the county inspector on-site at all times. You must determine whether the added expense is worth the time and money. Not all states have a transit certificate program.

The Specifications have been edited to include the requirement of transfer certificates where applicable by state requirements.

2. Bale tags.

Not all states have a bale tag system. Please take into consideration if the bale tags are really necessary. An option is for each truck load to have the proper straw certificate in lieu of individual bale tags along with a company manifest.

The Specifications have been edited to include the requirement of bale tags where applicable by state requirements.

On the pricing page, it would be helpful to have everyone bid on a six mile ferry instead of “up to” six miles. Bidding “up to” six miles, a potential bidder could conceivably bid 3 miles as an average ferry distance. The solicitation could state, the prices listed will be not-to-exceed pricing on future task orders. Each straw project is unique. We have been on a project that had sudden oak disease. Every vehicle was washed every time it entered the forest and every time it left the forest every day. We have had pilot cars, flaggers, etc. all of which can affect price.

We have edited the Schedule of Items to read “staging area 6 miles from application site”.

3. Pricing on woodmulch

Define where the wood is coming from for pricing purposes (outside sources or burnt wood on the National Forest)

This cannot be identified in the initial contract. It will be a requirement for contractor to determine at time of task order. If Forest Service raw materials are available, it will be identified at time of task order.

4. Treatment polygons

Altitudes, slopes, drainages/ waterways and prevailing winds. **Consideration for slopes and contours to evaluate true acreage.

Specific treatment polygons will be identified in the task orders. The task orders will include information to determine slope, aspect, elevation, etc… The source contract includes a range of conditions (including maximum anticipated operating constraints) of which may be included within the task orders.

5. A recent trend has been that a few large businesses have been running the contracts through small companies without even utilizing any of the services of the small companies, It may be good to have a clause that requires that the prime contractors are actually onsite and do at least 50% of the work.

See page 34 of Draft RFP, which states: “Offerors are advised that FAR 52.219-14, Limitations on Subcontracting applies to this acquisition. By submission of an offer and execution of a contract, the Offeror/Contractor agrees that in performance of the contract in the case of a contract for services, at least 50 percent of the cost of contract performance incurred for personnel shall be expended for employees of the concern”

6. “Supply of Wood Mulch and Wood Mulch Treatment. Erosion control wood mulch is an all wood, long strand material comprised of loose, wood pieces. The length to width ratio shall be such as to cover exposed soil at a surface as outlined by contract specifications. The length of wood mulch shall not be less than 2.5 inches, and not exceed 10 inches.”

Consider adding a percentage specification such as “No more than 20% of the material shall be less than 2.5 inches in size” This specification should be stringent but you also want to ensure it is possible to obtain this spec without having to utilize a material screen to remove the finer materials that are a natural byproduct of processing dry material.

This has been edited to include both a size and volume requirements. “The length of wood mulch shall be 2-8 inches. The diameter shall be 1 inch or less. No more than 2% by volume of the wood mulch shall be less than 2 inches and/or greater than 1 inch in diameter.”

7. “All wood mulch must be free of any additives to preserve product.”

In regards to Noxious weeds, consider adding language that ensures that clean wood that is free of non-native species shall be used for the production of Wood Mulch. No mulch from greenwaste recycling facilities should be permitted.

The following has been added: “All wood mulch must also be free of noxious weeds as identified and required for the area in which to be treated.”

8. “The wheat straw must be dry (less than 12 percent internal moisture content) to ensure proper dispersal during applications. The Forest Service may randomly test bales using a moisture probe. Straw shaft length will not exceed 12 inches.”

Consider removing this clause and inserting language that requires the straw to meet specifications for even coverage while being applied. It would be good to focus more on the contract specifications for actual ground coverage to achieve the desired results. There are ways to work with straw bales to ensure they spread evenly even if they have 12%+ moisture and shaft lengths over 12 inches. The straw harvest machines are changing resulting in longer straw shaft lengths and depending on the time of year the moisture can exceed 12% due to when and how the farmer harvested the material. There are certain times of year, industry demand and locations that severely limit the availability of certified weed free straw and adding additional limitations above and beyond the weed free certification will un necessarily drive up project costs. Proper storage requirements, pre delivery inspections and the 1 year time limitation should prevent old neglected straw from arriving onsite

The specifications have been edited to remove the moisture requirement of 12% but length of straw remains at less than 12 inches to allow proper ground contact and dispersal. The following is included: “The wheat or barley straw must be dry to ensure proper dispersal during applications. Straw shaft length will not exceed 12 inches.”

9. “Offerors are advised that FAR 52.219-14, Limitations on Subcontracting applies to this acquisition. By submission of an offer and execution of a contract, the Offeror/Contractor agrees that in performance of the contract in the case of a contract for services, at least 50 percent of the cost of contract performance incurred for personnel shall be expended for employees of the concern”

It may be good to utilize another unit of measure to ensure the prime contractor is actually doing the majority of the work, personnel fees are typically a small percentage of the overall project costs.

The FAR does not permit the tailoring or modification of this clause. The percentages and definitions are mandated and cannot be revised.

13 CFR 125.6(e)(1) defines“Cost of contract performance incurred for personnel” as “Direct labor costs and any overhead which has only direct labor as its base, plus the concern's General and Administrative rate multiplied by the labor cost.”

10. A recent trend has developed that requires contractors to achieve extremely complex projects in very short amounts of time. Projects that used to have 30-45 day timelines now have 10-20 days to complete. This has increased the risk associated with these projects as contractors are forced to use less qualified personnel and subcontractors when the production rate requirements exceed regional capabilities.

Capability and safety considerations are included in the contract evaluation of Technical Proposals. Workloads and required timing for completion will be considered during task orders and where needed more than one task order may be awarded within a project area.

11. As busy seasons hit and all of this type of work seems to hit all at once it would seem that a minimum of 3-4 contractors on the IDIQ would be ideal.

That is being planned/considered for the awards of this contract.

12. Clarify wood mulch...is this shreds?

It is any wood material that meets the specifications. The specifications have been revised to read: “Erosion control wood mulch is an all wood, long strand material comprised of loose, wood pieces. The length to width ratio shall be such as to cover exposed soil at a surface as outlined by contract specifications. The length of wood mulch shall be 2-8 inches. The diameter shall be 1 inch or less. No more than 2% by volume of the wood mulch shall be less than 2 inches and/or greater than 1 inch in diameter. All wood mulch must be free of any additives to preserve product. All wood mulch must also be free of noxious weeds as identified and required for the area in which to be treated.”

13. Why are certified truck weights needed when you are asking for a percentage of ground cover not a certain number of pounds per acre?

These are used to assist the agency in estimating application rates across the treatment units in conjunction with on the ground measurements of percent ground cover.

14. Schedule of items looks like you are asking for an hourly rate for helicopter time. By excluding mobilization and materials you are not getting a true picture of cost per unit. Sometimes helicopter time is the least expensive part of the project.

Including the highly variable costs of mobilization and materials we would not have a method to compare pricing. The scenarios in the schedule of items are to allow competition of treatments at a comparable standard unit of measure.

15. An example of an excellently written solicitation from a contractor’s point of view was the Elk Complex rehab (AG-84N8-S-14-0005). It was full of information that was vital to bid it competitively.

Because locations of treatment units, types of treatments, size of areas, etc…are unknown, we could not include the detailed information for a bid. However, during task order we will provide locations and treatment types that are required.

16. On the Schedule of Items, we suggest adding two additional line items:

1. Aerial application of agricultural wheat for 2000 + acres

2. Aerial application of wood mulch for 2000 + acres

Limiting the volume of acres on the Schedule of Items would have the potential to limit a task order to 2000 acres.

This was considered. However, a decision was made based upon past BAER projects to limit the size of treatment units to 2000 acres. If a project requires more than 2000 acres a second task order (or more) will be issued. This is to ensure contractors with limited capability are allowed to be competitive as well as ensure emergency measures are expeditiously implemented before any damaging storm events.

17. We would suggest that the USDA include barley straw, in addition to wheat straw, as an acceptable weed-free product. There are several states in Region 1 and 4 where wheat straw is hard to purchase in large quantities.

Barley straw has been included as acceptable agricultural mulch.

18. If an awardee graduates/changes from a small to a large business during the life of the contract, are they then ineligible for task order awards, or does the small business certification last for the duration of the IDIQ contract?

As long as a company is a small business before award, they will stay a small business for the life of the contract, even if they actually graduate and become a large business during the contract. The only exception to this is if the small business is acquired by a large business, in which case they would have to re-represent as large business within 30 days of the acquisition or merger.

19. How did you come up with numbers in the Schedule of Items? Can you explain the reasoning behind this methodology?

The FAR requires that price be evaluated on IDIQ contracts and that the awarded prices are binding. The prices proposed under the RFP for this IDIQ will be binding in that they cannot be exceeded during task order competitions. They are fixed prices in the sense that offerors must either propose the awarded base contract pricing during task order competitions or they may choose to reduce their prices based on the level of complexity of the project. There is nothing that prevents offerors from proposing lower prices at the task order level than the prices awarded on the base contract. We anticipate that the competitive pressure of having multiple awardees competing for task orders should reduce prices to competitive, “market rates”. We’re not going to require offerors to price out materials and mobilization up front because of the high variability of pricing that is dependent upon the location of the requirement and the type of seed or mulch the Government requires for each project. We will request pricing on materials and mobilization at the task order level when we know the location of the project and what kind of seed or mulch will be required. Since fixed prices can’t be exceeded and knowing that contractors need to cover their risk, we have tried to come up with basically a worst-case treatment scenario for the base contract that will allow us to meet the FAR requirement of evaluating price and awarding binding, fixed prices for the actual application of mulch and seed. Offerors should be able to cover a lot of their risk by having fixed prices set for a very complex, “worst-case scenario” projects but will still have the flexibility to propose lower prices on less complex projects in order to be competitive. Price will always be an evaluation factor at the task order level so it will be in each IDIQ awardee’s best interest to price the task order requirements competitively. Our “worst case scenario” numbers came from years of procurement history and input from Government personnel that have many years of experience with BAER aerial seeding and mulching. The numbers are obviously on the high end of the range with regard to distance from staging area and terrain elevation.

20. When do you anticipate posting the actual RFP on FBO?

We are hoping to post the Final RFP within 1-2 weeks.