19-02758_Statement_of_Work_RFQ.docx

Statement of Work

BACKGROUND

The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Pacific Islands Regional Office (PIRO) is responsible for the management, conservation, and protection of living marine resources within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The Pacific Islands Region (PIR) includes waters surrounding American Samoa, Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Hawaii, and the Pacific Remote Island Areas. The PIR is unique in that it encompasses a large percentage of the nation’s coral reefs. It is the largest geographic area within NMFS jurisdiction with an EEZ of more than 1.7 million square nautical miles of ocean. The role of the Habitat Conservation Division (HCD) within NMFS PIRO is to conserve, protect and restore marine habitat and coastal ecosystems in the PIR. PIRO HCD has a field office in the CNMI that partners with territorial agencies, NGOs and the public to manage, conserve and enhance habitats for fishery resources, protected species and other living marine resources in accordance with appropriate Acts and mandates.

HCD staff based in the CNMI actively address many resource management and conservation issues. They include essential fish habitat consultations, response and restoration in the aftermath of physical impact events, reef resilience science and management, reduction of and mitigation for land-based sources of pollution, and implementation of coastal habitat restoration projects. HCD staff are now pursuing active population enhancement of coral communities in the CNMI. Given the remote location of the CNMI field office, HCD staff are often faced with logistical limitations when responding to other hazard events and/or when conducting general coral reef management and research activities all of which require extensive regional partnering with the CNMI Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality (BECQ), Department of Lands and Natural Resources (DLNR), Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW), and others partners. For the purposes of this contract DLNR/DFW and BECQ are considered the local stakeholders. While NMFS and local agencies have some limited personnel and interest in supporting population enhancement activities, we often have difficulties securing the necessary logistical and scientific support to implement these activities in a timely manner ourselves.

This new contract will provide up to three follow-on years of capacity for non-personal services for ongoing maintenance, nursery growth and resources for outplanting efforts to provide proof of concept for the pilot design with the goal of facilitating the recovery of shallow water reef communities.

This is a firm-fixed price non-personal service order to support additional scoping, construction, and deployment and the ongoing monitoring, maintenance and outplanting from SCNPP. The government Project Leader will be responsible for the overall scheduling of project activity and will provide the Contractor with scheduling information as appropriate.

YEAR ONE TASKS

YEAR TWO & THREE TASKS

Task #14 Generation of a project report for local stakeholders and government Project Leader summarizing the project including appendices for genetic results and scientific instrument analysis.

The Contractor shall write reports and share them with the government Project Leader and local partners.

YEAR ONE DELIVERABLES

YEAR TWO & THREE DELIVERABLES

REQUIRED SERVICES

The Contractor shall provide services that include both vessel support and diver support for a variety of tasks associated with this contract and must be able to meet the requirements listed here:

Vessels: In order to support the activities outlined in the Tasks and Deliverables section, the Contractor shall need to be able to provide at least 20 days of access annually to a small (21’ - 30’) vessel that meets the following or equal requirements:

Personnel: Personnel furnished by the Contractor shall meet the following minimum or equal personnel requirements:

REMOVING CONTRACTORS FOR MISCONDUCT OR SECURITY REASONS

The Government may, at its sole discretion (in coordination with the Contracting Officer where practical), direct the Contractor to remove any Contractor employee from NOAA facilities for misconduct or security reasons. Removal does not relieve the Contractor of the responsibility to continue providing the services required under the contract. The Contracting Officer will provide the Contractor with a written explanation to support any request to remove a Contractor.

POST-AWARD CONFERENCE

The Contractor shall attend a Task Order Kick-off conference with the Project Leader no later than 10 business days after the date of award. The purpose of the Task Order conference, which will be chaired by the Project Leader, is to clarify details, place of performance, building access time, communication channels, anticipated travel (if any), required GOV training, and progress report and invoicing details. The Task Order Kick off conference will be held at the Government’s facility, located at CNMI NOAA Field Office and/or via teleconference.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

All deliverables are the property of the U.S. Government. All documents, analyses, files (digital or other), reports, notes and photos are to be used only by Contractor personnel assigned to this Task Order. Documents, files and other data are to be stored exclusively on Government owned equipment and at no point should be saved or archived on personal drives or devices. Copies are not to be disseminated to anyone outside of the NMFS or to any other Contractor personnel without explicit release from the NMFS Project Leader.

ENVIRONMENTAL DATA

The Saipan Coral Nursery Pilot Project (award #), will generate environmental data and information, including but not limited to: health and growth rate data for nursery and outplanted corals, health and recovery data for parent colony corals as well as temperature and current data from instruments deployed at the nursery, parent colony and outplanting sites. Datasets will be collected quarterly from instruments and semi-annually from the nursery, parent colony and outplanting sites as part of collection, fragmenting and outplanting activities. Data will be collected by the Contractor according to the procedures that have been developed and implemented as part of the Saipan Coral Nursery Baseline setting activities and will be provided by the Governmental project lead. All data shall be provided to the Governmental project lead via email, gdrive sharing or hard copy delivery within two weeks of data collection. The data will be available to the public within one year of data collection with the metadata hosted within InPort following the NMFS Data and Information Policy Directive (attached). All future sub-awardees not identified in this plan will have as a condition of their contract acceptance of this data sharing plan. Any additional data sharing stipulations for future sub-awardees may be outlined at that time and described in their contract.

GOVERNMENT FURNISHED RESOURCES

The Government will not furnish any resources to the Contractor in support of this contract.

IT SECURITY

The Contractor must meet the Department of Commerce IT Security Program Policy and Minimum Implementation Standards (found at https://connection.commerce.gov/collection/it-security-policy-and-fisma-reporting-program). The Contractor must also adhere to NOAA and NMFS security policies (found at https://www.csp.noaa.gov/policies/).

PLACE OF PERFORMANCE

Work will be conducted at other than the government facility (i.e. off-site) and at contractor’s facility. Any meetings held onsite the Contractor will have to sign in as a visitor.

OVERTIME, TRAVEL & TRAINING

Overtime is not anticipated nor authorized at this time. If overtime is required, it will be coordinated through the Project Leader and approved on a case-by-case basis by the Contracting Officer in writing. Any overtime worked prior to the receipt of proper written authorization from the Contracting Officer will be done at the Contractor’s own risk and expense.

Travel is not expected or authorized for this order.

Training is authorized for NMFS/NOAA/DOC specific systems and requirements only as required by the task order. Completion certificates must be submitted to the COR within 3 business days of the start of the contract/task order.

· NOAA IT security (required for all contractors)

· NOAA Safety training (required for all contractors working on-site, i.e., at a Government facility)

· Records Management 101 (required for all contractors)

· Complete the course at https://www.corporateservices.noaa.gov/audit/records_management/Training.html using Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox; COR to send completion certificate to records.management@noaa.gov

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

The following additional aspects are / are not anticipated during the performance of this order:

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE

Base Year September 30, 2019 through September 29, 2020 Option Year 1 September 30, 2020 through September 29, 2021 Option Year 2 September 30, 2021 through September 29, 2022

During this part-time order, the Contractor shall determine their own hours each week working out of their own facilities with the understanding that work at local field locations will have variable schedules depending upon the nature of the work, location situation and working conditions, and should be coordinated with the government Project Leader prior to beginning the work.

Contractor employees performing services under this order shall be controlled, directed and supervised at all times by management personnel of the Contractor. The Contractor’s management shall ensure that employees properly comply within the company’s performance standards. Contractor employees shall perform independent of and without the supervision of any Government official. Actions of Contractor employees may not be interpreted or implemented in any manner that results in any Contractor employee creating or modifying Federal policy, obligating the appropriated funds of the U.S. Government, overseeing the work of Federal employees, providing direct personal services to any Federal employee or otherwise violating the prohibitions set forth in Parts 7.5 and 37.1 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).