McNary Dam Spillway Direct Fish Injury Evaluation

The US Army Corps of Engineers, Walla Walla District is seeking sources to provide personnel, materials, supplies, equipment, transportation, and other items and services for the following: McNary Dam Direct Fish Injury Evaluation.

This project involves estimating direct injury and survival of yearling Chinook salmon passing through various routes of the McNary Dam Spillway by direct releases of fish equipped with balloon tags. Currently, there are concerns about possible injury to fish that will be passing the new emergency spillway operations at McNary in 2024. There is regional interest in performing a direct injury evaluation prior to the mandated Spring spill season which starts on April 3, 2024. This contractor must be able to complete the evaluation in March of 2024.

Requirements:

• Offerors must have the proven ability to utilize balloon tags to estimate direct injury of salmonids passing through hydroelectric facilities.

• Offerors must be able to have direct release pipes fabricated, capable of releasing fish at multiple locations in the spillway, prior to the study.

• Offerors must be able to arrange for obtaining sufficient juvenile Spring Chinook salmon from a hatchery within the Columbia River Basin and transport of the study fish to McNary Dam.

• Estimate direct injury and survival of yearling Chinook salmon passing through a McNary Spillbay after being set in the upstream slot in split-leaf operation by direct releases of fish equipped with balloon tags at two different elevations.  (Sample sizes sufficient to estimate survival with a precision of ±5% @ 95% Confidence Interval [CI]).

• Estimate direct injury and survival of yearling Chinook salmon passing through McNary Dam Temporary Spillway Weir (TSW) by direct releases of fish equipped with balloon tags at two different elevations.  (Sample sizes sufficient to estimate survival with a precision of ±5% @ 95% CI).

• Offerors must have the proven ability to utilize balloon tags to estimate direct injury of salmonids passing through hydroelectric facilities.

• Offerors must be able to have direct release pipes fabricated, capable of releasing fish at multiple locations in the spillway, prior to the study.

• Offerors must be able to arrange for obtaining sufficient juvenile Spring Chinook salmon from a hatchery within the Columbia River Basin and transport of the study fish to McNary Dam.

• Offerors must be able to statistically test for significant differences in direct fish injury rates with pre-determined levels of precision.

This contractor must be able to complete the field work for the evaluation in March of 2024.

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this project is 541380 and the associated small business size standard is $19M.

THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION. This sources-sought announcement is a tool to identify businesses with the capability to accomplish the work. Firms who respond to this announcement by submitting the following information will be used in determining whether to set aside this requirement. Please do not respond to this notice unless you will be responding to the solicitation.

1) A capability statement expressing interest in this requirement.

2) A statement or list of your firm's current or past performance similar to or the same as the summary scope of work.

3) Is your firm a Large or Small Business?

4) Name of firm with address, phone and point of contact.

5) Cage Code or SAM Unique Identification Number.

Please send information to:  alan.n.inglis@usace.army.mil