ESBD_460771_1761920896114_Addenda 1.pdf

TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS DIVISION

ADDENDUM No. 1

DATE: 10/31/2025

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS FOR STATEWIDE BIOLOGICAL SERVICES

SOLICITATION: 601CT0000005605

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

IN THE SUBMISSION OF THIS RESPONSE, RESPONDENT MUST ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF THIS

ADDENDUM; OTHERWISE, THIS RESPONSE MAY NOT BE GIVEN CONSIDERATION. RESPONDENT

MUST ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT BY ATTACHING THIS DOCUMENT VIA PDF TO YOUR PROPOSAL

COVER PAGE WHEN COMPLETING THE SUBMISSION FOR ATTACHMENT 1 IN BONFIRE.

SIGNED:

COMPANY AUTHORIZED SIGNATURE

COMPANY NAME

Preproposal Conference Notes Civil Rights/ HUB Subcontracting Statement Don Barwick, TxDOT HUB Coordinator My responsibilities are to ensure HUB compliance during the ENV proposal phase, awarding of contracts, and HUB Compliance monitoring throughout the contract period. Please do not send direct request/questions to me;

an email address and deadline is provided in the reminder below for your use.

Subcontracting opportunities were determined to be probable. And therefore, a HUB Subcontracting Plan is required with the proposal submission. Failure to submit a HUB subcontracting plan will result in immediate disqualification. The good faith effort goal is 26%. Note that I did say good faith effort. I did not say set aside. What the State of Texas (TxDOT) expects from each respondent is to make a good faith effort to identify, solicit, and hopefully utilize HUBs as subcontractors.

There are four methods of completing the HUB subcontracting plan: (See Part IV, HUB Subcontracting Plan, Sections 6.3.1-6.3.4 of the RFP)

(1) Respondent Intends to Subcontract with only HUBs. This method eliminates worrying about the good faith effort goal or going through good faith effort to solicit and notify. A few things to remember. HUBS must:

• Be certified by the State of Texas.

• Be in good standing. Only State of Texas certified HUBs count in this effort. HUB certificates must up to date and have not expired.

• Not have been dismissed from the program or they haven't graduated.

The easiest way to ensure that your HUBs meet requirements is to ask for their HUB certificate.

(2) Respondent Intends to Subcontract with HUBs and Non-HUBs (Meet or Exceed the Goal). You can meet our good faith effort goal by using a HUB or a number of HUBs in addition to any non-HUBs that you might be using. Couple things to remember about this method.

• First, ensure that your HUBs are certified by the State of Texas.

• Second, make sure that they are in good standing as I defined it a few minutes ago.

• Third, make sure the is correct. Respondents must need to meet or exceed the good faith effort goal of using a HUB or a number of HUBs in addition to any non-HUBs being used.

(3) Respondent Intends to Subcontract with HUBs and Non-HUBs (Does Not Meet or Exceed the Goal). Solicitation and notification is the default method if respondents are unable to use only HUBs, can't meet our good faith effort goal, and are not self-performing. This is the default method to use. If respondents cannot utilize other three methods, going through a good faith effort to solicit and notify means that respondents need to solicit. A minimum of three HUBs for each opportunity that you've identified, you need to notify two trade organizations of opportunities. And a solicitation notification effort must be completed seven business days prior to the bid being open. Weekends and holidays don't count.

(4) Respondent Does Not Intend to Subcontract. Final method of completing the HUB subcontracting that's available is to self-perform. If choosing to self-performing, the respondent is telling TxDOT that 100% of the resources are available in-house to perform all work that's described in the bid proposal. Resources in this statement means all the necessary supplies materials, equipment, labor, and or workforce to do 100% of the scope of work as described in-house. Be very careful if utilizing this method. The HUB Coordinator will review the self-supporting explanation. Respondent statements must be thorough, concise, and convincing to be able to demonstrate that 100% of the scope of work with the firm’s own resources.

REMINDER:

Don't forget the HUB Subcontracting Plan. The HSP must be signed and included in the Bonfire submission.

Failing to sign and/or submit the HUB subcontracting plan are the two easiest ways to be disqualified.

Respondents are highly encouraged to submit a draft HSP no later than seven days prior to the due date. This allows Civil Rights to help respondents meet compliance with the HUB subcontracting plan by reviewing the draft HSP and provide comments whether or not respondents are meeting compliance at the time of the draft. Ensure that a completed, signed, and compliant HSP is included in the final submission in Bonfire.

The initial review of the Draft HUB subcontracting plans are available for the Biological RFP through noon on Wednesday, November 12, 2025. Those can be sent directly to Laura Poldrack at laura.poldrack@txdot.gov. After reviewing, respondents will be able to see if a conditional approval was achieved or review the comments, make corrections, and resubmit.

Preproposal Notes ENV anticipates issuing work under this particular RFP is ongoing. There is a fair amount of species-specific surveys that are conducted under this contract, a lot of mussel surveys. In the past two to three years, ENV has been doing a fair amount of bat work, culvert surveys, bat exclusions, things of that nature for multiple species of bats. ENV has had biological assessments for a wide variety of species across the state. A lot of work in our northern districts related to Shiner species, so that's one of the emphasis on mussels and fish species. ENV does anticipate that to continue along with a big emphasis statewide on bridge replacement and bridge maintenance. That is why there is so much emphasis on aquatic species. ENV anticipates that will continue as the money to rehabilitate and maintain the bridge infrastructure that we have has continued through the current administration. That ties back to bats as well a fair amount of bat bridge interaction.

ENV also has several projects that are ramping up in coastal areas, so there may be more opportunities for NMFS consultation and marine species, EFH, etcetera.

ENV will emphasize that if you are submitting TxDOT projects and are unsure of information for that project, please use the question and answer time period associated with this RFP to ask us for that information. Please do not submit us incomplete projects. ENV wants to make sure that you take that opportunity and have that information well in hand. There is a fair amount of information asked for to make sure that we can connect the dots on our end. The deadline to submit questions and clarifications and/or ECOS requests will be through Monday, November 3rd at 5:00 PM.

Questions/Response Question 1: For Attachment 5-Ichthyologist Qualifications, Instructions (page 19 of 27), under item 2: Would the completion of a Biological Assessment be considered "other similar actions"?

Response 1: No. The projects should be field based assessments or conservation actions.

Question 2: For a certain experience with imperiled fish, I did that more in an academic setting. Would that qualify as potentially adding to a resume?

Response 2: If it was done as part of your degree work, then no, that would not qualify. If you read the first part above the position description qualifications, it is explained there. Appendix-1 is where the personnel qualifications are. ENV would highly encourage everyone read that section carefully because it lines out what counts, what doesn't, and why. If it was not a part of your degree work, but it was still related to your academic work, then you need to very carefully explain. Provide connect the dots for ENV to follow so that it's clear that it was not part of your academic degree work.

mailto:laura.poldrack@txdot.gov

Question 3: If I was just hired by the university to help with identifying species, then I potentially could add it?

Response 3: If you were being paid outside of your degree work, yes, that could potentially count. Everyone has an opportunity for every position to explain what their employment history is so that it makes it more clear.

Tell ENV your story and where this fits into your story and that will help us understand your experience better.

Question 4: Can you please go over the past work that was being done on the previous contract that we should be expecting in this contract?

Response 4: Recent work and work that we expect to continue under this contract includes freshwater mussel surveys, freshwater mussel relocations, biological assessments for species across the state, habitat evaluations for species across the state. There has been a big emphasis on impacts to fish species, mussel species as they interrelate. ENV anticipates a continued increase in bridge work across the state which again places that emphasis on those aquatic species. Also bat surveys in terms of bat culverts and bridges and bat relocations.

Final Statement ENV highly encourages all proposers to submit proposals early. And then remember any issues or questions or concerns related to the proposal submissions through Bonfire need to be addressed no later than 72 hours prior to the proposal due date. Contacts below are available for assistance Monday through Friday, 8:00am – 5:00pm CST. Patricia Matull, 512-993-7957, Patricia.Matull@txdot.gov or Samantha Serino, 512-884-7495, Samantha.Serino@txdot.gov

We highly encourage those submitting TxDOT projects as part of their submission to email requests to confirm/request dates, CSJs, approvals from other agencies, or all other unconfirmed information as soon as possible. All the criteria for each position for each project is extremely important.

mailto:Patricia.Matull@txdot.gov mailto:Samantha.Serino@txdot.gov