Redacted_-_SOLE_SOURCE_JUSTIFICATION.docx

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION STATES THE FOLLOWING PART:

The following information is provided to demonstrate the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications:

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Water Mission Area, Office of Water Quality requests a sole source acquisition with the following provider of atmospheric deposition station operation services for a cooperatively supported station between the USGS and the site owner and operator in support of the interagency National Atmospheric Deposition Program, National Trends Network (NADP-NTN):

USGS is responsible for the operation of nine atmospheric deposition sites where the land and the site is owned by another organization, agency or individual and are in restricted scientific research areas, VT99 is one of these nine sites. It is a mutually beneficial scientific and technical partnership between this organization that has purview over the site locations and desire the information collected from these sites. USGS needs information gathered from this site as part of a national network for national-scale measurement of the status and trends in wet deposition. Moving the site would result in a break of the long-term environment monitoring record, i.e. a new site location data would not be comparable to the previous site, which typically had continuous monitoring data back to the early 1980’s.

The operating organization will not allow a third-party vendor to operate this site or have access to the land, site or equipment. It is the organizations private land and they will only allow access to a trusted individual who has an existing professional relationship with the organization. Some equipment is owned by the USGS and other equipment essential to operating the site such as platforms, electrical power service, access paths, fences, sample processing field laboratory building and roads at the site is owned by the operating organization, agency, or individual.

Supporting this site requires 52 trips per year to this location, in rural and very remote areas on land and at scientific research areas that are not open to the public or open to weekly visits by individuals from other private organization. In no case does the USGS own the land or have control over site access.

The primary reason the USGS is not operating these sites is because, despite having offices in every state with multiple field offices in most states, we do not have the means or permission to access these sites. It is cost prohibitive to USGS to operate this site therefore, USGS is funding the scientific activity and the sponsoring organization maintains control of the site access. USGS offices do operate a number of other sites where we do have the means and access to site locations, but the list of nine sites where we seek sole source awards are the "partnership" site locations where we do not have the means and permission to access the sites. A competitive action would imply that we could unilaterally remove the land-owning and operating organizations or individuals from this activity and replace them with a private entity. This is not the case, since these multi-decade long research and monitoring sites are not under the ownership and control of the USGS, the USGS is funding the scientific activity.

The land is owned by the University of Vermont and that these research areas are secured and have restricted access to the University of Vermont employees only.

The NADP is a public, nonprofit, unincorporated, interstate association of parties interested in atmospheric deposition and its effects. It is structured as a cooperative program that represents coordinated efforts of many federal, state, academic, and private organizations and individuals to operate monitoring sites, report data, and oversee research activities related to atmospheric deposition. Membership in NADP is open to individuals and institutions interested in participating in any aspect of atmospheric deposition monitoring and/or research stemming from NADP data. This organizational structure is consistent with State Agricultural Experiment Station (SAES) Guidelines for Multi-state Research Activities. The contract the USGS seeks to award represents a partnership with VT99 to support sites in the most efficient manner with organizations and individuals that own and control the local site locations. Under the interagency National Acidic Precipitation Assessment Program established in 1981, the USGS is the designated lead agency for the monitoring of atmospheric deposition and NADP is the operational organization through which the USGS and other participating organizations accomplish this national-scale monitoring in the most efficient and cost-effective manner.

Where a USGS-supported site can be potentially operated by any number of interested individuals or organizations, we offer those site duties via a competitive process. This document describes the situation where we have sites that cannot be competed due to the cooperative partnership aspect of these sites location and ownership. No other source is known in the Greenwood, Texas, area that is qualified to complete the requirement.