FAR 13 - Sole Source -UWFL_prSign.pdf

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Eastern Acquisition Division Norfolk Federal Building 200 Granby Street, Room 815 Norfolk, VA 23510

SINGLE SOURCE DETERMINATION USING

SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION PROCEDURES (SAP)

FOR AN ACTION NOT EXCEEDING THE SIMPLIFIED ACQUISITION THRESHOLD

(AUTHORITY: FAR 13.106-1(b)(1))

NFFN7600-20-02551

1. Agency and contracting activity. Department of Commerce, NOAA Acquisition and Grants Office (AGO), Eastern Acquisition Division (EAD) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC)

2. Description of supplies or services required to meet agency needs (including the estimated value).

The Southeast Fishery Science Center is charged with providing scientific advice and products necessary to achieve the management objectives of NOAA Fisheries, Fishery Management Councils, State Commissions and international organizations. To better do this for sea turtles we are extending an existing tool, Monitoring Strategy Evaluation (MoSE), to be spatially explicit. A spatially explicit MSE will allow prognostic evaluation of spatially relevant management issues likely to affect sea turtle population dynamics, such as the influence of sea level rise on nesting beaches or spatially explicit management actions, and the ability to detect resultant changes in population status indicators (i.e. abundance, population trend).

The spatially-explicit agent-based management strategy model for NW Atlantic loggerhead sea turtles will benefit management by allowing the scientists to test management-related questions (e.g. bycatch limit by gear, time/area closures) in a predictive manner and pertain to specific geographic locations, as the model will be spatially explicit. We will initially test the capability of the model to do so by analyzing trade-offs in management options for the amount of bycatch that still permit population growth to be positive and support overall recovery efforts.

Base year contract $43,411. August 15, 2020 – August 14, 2021 For proof of concept sea turtle MSE framework and a parameterized management example. Option year 1: $51,095 August 15, 2021 – August 14, 2022 Option year 2: $56,204 August 15, 2022 – August 14, 2023

3. Identification of the single source to be solicited.

University of West Florida Hal Marcus College of Science and Engineering Department of Biology Office: 62E – Building 58 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 Susan Piacenza, Ph.D. Assistant Professor P: 850-857-6414, Email: spiacenza@uwf.edu.

mailto:spiacenza@uwf.edu

4. Supporting rationale. Only one source or brand name is reasonably available as detailed below:

□ Other - Only one source is capable Dr. Piaceza from the University of west Florida has lead the development of the sea turtle assessment model since 2015 in collaboration with NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science (SEFSC) Center. We are in a unique situations to exploit the current model for development of a management strategy evaluation (MSE). The development of the MSE will allow the SEFSC to better communicate our assessment in the context of multiple management choices. The MSE will allow for more scientific information to be integrated into management decisions.

5. Market Research.

While there might be a handful of people who could read the code of our current assessment models and implement them for our needs, the cost to bring someone up to speed before being able to develop the management strategy would exceed the total value of this contract many fold.

Alternatively we could contract to develop a completely new model, but similarly to the above, the cost to develop the assessment model would exceed the value of this contract approximately 5 fold, as it has been at least 5 years under development.