Mobile Floating Contaminant Separation System

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineering Research and Development Center-Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (ERDC-CERL) has a requirement to procure a Mobile Floating Contaminant Separation System (MFCSS) that can be integrated with an existing Algal Biomass Destruction and Transformation System. The MFCSS will have five separate watercraft. ERDC-CERL intends to sole source this acquisition in accordance with FAR 13.501(a) to Elastec. Market research has indicated that Elastec is the only source capable of meeting the Government’s requirements for this commercial item because of the following reasons.  The Mobile Floating Contaminant Separation System (MFCSS) from Elastec Inc. is a deployable system that can intercept and concentrate algae from large natural water bodies.  The MFCSS has a minimal size, water displacement, and energy consumption for harvesting and concentrating more than 0.5 million gallons per day of algae-laden water in a shipboard system. It includes proprietary boom vanes that can be deployed from boats or shorelines to focus algae-laden water towards the process intake. In addition, the MFCSS will meet the algae feed concentration and volume requirements for an existing hydrothermal liquefaction system that is currently being studied by ERDC for destruction and transformation of harmful algal bloom biomass.

Finally, the MFCSS is a commercially-available item that with minor modifications offers the following technical specifications, which are not available through any other vendor’s products:

• Watercraft with square bow and v-hull to allow increased maneuverability and large footprint and payload (110 sf of work space per watercraft, > 3800 lbs of payload capacity while maintaining 2 feet of freeboard, and watercraft length less than or equal to 24 feet, with width less than 8.5 feet.
• Floating two-stage skimming and de-watering system with an influent processing rate of 500 gallons per minute, targeted to the top 1 inch of the water column, with an ability to concentrate floating particulate contaminants such as microalgae to at least 150,000 mg/L (15% by mass), which is required for compatibility with hydrothermal liquefaction.

This is not a request for proposal and in no way obligates the Government to award any contract.

The associated North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 336611 which has a size standard of 1,250 Employees. This is not a small business set aside. Any interested party that believes they can fulfill this requirement should submit a capability statement to be reviewed. All submissions will be considered, however there is no guarantee that submissions in response to this notice will in any way alter the Government’s acquisition strategy.

Please provide responses to this notice no later than March 12, 2020 at 12:00pm, Central Standard Time (CST), to:

CERL-CT-QUOTES@usace.army.mil

Telephone responses will not be accepted.

Responses to this notice will not be considered as a response to any solicitation, a request to be added to a prospective offerors list, or to receive a copy of any solicitation. A determination by the Government not to compete the contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.