Clean Air Status and Trends Network (CASTNET)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Air Programs (OAP), Clean Air Markets Division (CAMD) anticipates awarding a single Indefinite-Delivery/Indefinite-Quantity with a one-year base and four one-year option periods. This procurement will be conducted as a full-and-open competition under the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 15: Contracting by Negotiation. The formal solicitation and other related information and items will be posted at this website on or about October 7, 2020. The total labor hours estimated for this effort is approximately 257,144 hours for the base and all options. The minimum guarantee for the base year is $250,000.00. All responsible offerors may submit a proposal. Copies of the solicitation will be available on this site. Paper copies of the solicitation will not be provided. An RFI /Sources sought was previously posted (68HERH20R0009) to FedConnect on January 29, 2020. It is the responsibility of interested parties to regularly monitor this website for updates to this procurement. Telephone inquiries will not be taken.

The objective of this requirement is support of the Clean Air Status and Trends Network (CASTNET). CASTNET is a long-term environmental monitoring network that measures changes in ambient air quality and assesses atmospheric deposition over broad geographic regions of the U.S. (https://www.epa.gov/castnet). Operating since 1987, CASTNET has evolved into a robust regional monitoring program which currently consists of approximately 95 monitoring stations nationwide. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) coordinates the operation of the network in cooperation with numerous federal, tribal, state and local partners.

The primary monitoring objectives of CASTNET are to:

. Provide high quality data on atmospheric concentrations and deposition of sulfur and nitrogen species, rural ground level ozone and other forms of atmospheric pollution;

. Support the primary and secondary ozone NAAQS by providing data that meet the regulatory requirements in 40 CFR;

. Monitor the status and trends in regional air quality and atmospheric deposition;

. Assess and report on geographic patterns and long-term, temporal trends in ambient air pollution and atmospheric deposition;

. Improve our understanding of PM and ozone formation;

. Validate and improve atmospheric transport and deposition models;

. Assess the effectiveness of EPA¿s emission reduction programs;

. Act as a platform for air quality and deposition research; and

. Support science and ecosystem studies.

CASTNET sites measure weekly average concentrations of sulfate (SO42-), nitrate (NO3-), ammonium (NH4+), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitric acid (HNO3), chloride (Cl-) and the base cations (Na+, K+, Mg2+and Ca2+) using a 3-stage filter pack. In addition, each site may make ancillary measurements, including hourly ozone (O3), hourly meteorology, ammonia (NH3) gas using passive devices, and trace-level gases. Trace-level gas monitors include reactive oxidized nitrogen (NOy), nitric oxide (NO), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and carbon monoxide (CO). CASTNET O3, meteorological, and trace gas measurements follow the requirements in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and EPAs Quality Assurance Handbook.

As a long-term regional monitoring program, CASTNET is critical for characterizing trends in deposition levels and identifying relationships among emissions, atmospheric loadings, ecological effects and human health. The EPA, other government agencies and the scientific community rely on the data and information from CASTNET, used in conjunction with information from other national monitoring networks (e.g., the National Atmospheric Deposition Program/National Trends Network (NADP/NTN), NADPs Ammonia Monitoring Network (AMoN), NCore, the Chemical Speciation Network (CSN), and Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE)), to evaluate the effectiveness of air pollution control strategies for regional areas and assess chemical changes in the atmosphere. Since atmospheric changes occur very slowly and trends are often obscured by the wide variability of measurements and climate, numerous years of continuous and consistent data are required to overcome this variability.

The EPA Office of Atmospheric Programs manages CASTNET and is committed to regional atmospheric monitoring to assess long-term environmental trends. The Clean Air Markets Division (CAMD), Office of Atmospheric Programs (OAP), is the lead in providing support and technical direction for CASTNET. Additional background information, current standard operating procedures (SOPs), and the CASTNET Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) are available at https://www.epa.gov/castnet.

Please review the draft Statement of Work for more information regarding this requirement. The formal solicitation, amendments, procurement updates and other related information will be posted on this website as they become available.