Traditional Cultural Trail Identification, Analysis and Field Evaluation, Libby Dam, Libby, MT

SOLE SOURCE ANNOUNCEMENT
1. Introduction
The USACE Seattle District intends to award a sole source contract to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation (CSKT).

2. Description of Services

This contract is for professional, non-personal historic property ("cultural resources") management services, focusing on providing the Corps' management program with crucial information about the CSKT's tribal cultural values (Historic Properties of Religious and Cultural Significance to Indian Tribes (HPRCSIT)), to implement and carry out the Project's HPMP. The services necessary to implement the program as required by the Federal Columbia River Power System Programmatic Agreement include eliciting ethnographic and ethno-historic information regarding Traditional Cultural Trails and associated historic properties, preparing reports and geographic information systems data, conducting site inspections to identify and evaluate Traditional Trails networks and components. These services must integrate crucial information about the CSKT's tribal cultural values and practices into the planning and performance of work needed to carry out the program, since such work is focused on HPRCSIT.

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code is 921150 with no applicable size standard.

3. Authority

FAR 13.106-1(b) Soliciting from a single source. (i) For purchases not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold.

4. Reasons for Sole Source

Pursuant to FAR 13.106-1(b)(1)(i) "Contracting Officers may solicit from one source if the Contracting Officer determines that the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available (e.g. urgency, exclusive licensing agreements, brand name or industrial mobilization.)"

Pursuant to the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), PL 89-665, 16 USC 407, et seq, the Corps is required to take into account the effect of its undertakings on any district, site, building, structure, or object included in, or eligible for inclusion in, the National Register (16 U.S.C. § 470 f). If the undertaking is found to have an adverse effect on properties, the Corps must consider actions to address the effects, including measures to preserve historic properties. All of the steps in the process must occur in consultation with the associated Indian tribes. The process includes evaluating the significance of the historic properties, and requires access to information about the properties that is in sole possession of Indian tribes, specifically the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe of the Flathead Reservation (CSKT). Furthermore, the Native Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Public Law 101-601, 25 USC 3001, et seq, requires the Corps to consult with Indian tribes immediately following inadvertent discovery of cultural items or ancestral skeletal remains on Federal or tribal lands. NAGPRA also requires the Corps to inventory and repatriate human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony to the affiliated tribes.

In the case at hand, the HPRCSITs and any items from them are primarily associated with the CSKT. The CSKT's adjudicated ceded lands include nearly all of the Project's cultural resource sites within the upper and lower Kootenai River Basin which includes 1,040 acres associated with Libby Dam along both banks of Lake Koocanusa extending 48 miles upstream of the dam, and downstream of the dam bordering the Kootenai River. CSKT jurisdictional lands also extend to Bonners Ferry and also include the Fisher River. The CSKT Tribe also has tribally owned lands at the project with several historic properties and is the primary tribe for NAGPRA inadvertent discovery actions in the subject project areas.

In order to evaluate the significance of HPRCSIT, it is necessary to understand the cultural knowledge associated with them. The CSKT Tribe has confidential information and years of accumulated oral history knowledge of HPRCSIT within the Project. No other organization has this knowledge and experience. Only the CSKT Tribe can access the persons having the knowledge of the stories associated with the HPRCSITs. Furthermore, consultation responsibilities of USACE to the CSKT Tribe when implementing Section 3 of NAGPRA will most likely be accomplished if the CSKT Tribe is the contractor for dealing with inadvertent discoveries. Materials collected from HPRCSITs during management activities are the property of the Government, but are held in trust for the CSKT Tribe, except for NAGPRA-eligible items which are directly CSKT Tribe property. Knowledge of CSKT perspectives, traditions and cultural practices centered on HPRCSIT at the project is held by members of the CSKT Tribe, is considered confidential with the Tribe, and is not accessible to others without agreement of the CSKT Tribe Business Committee.

There is no other source of expertise in CSKT traditional cultural resource interests at the Project. Due to the aforementioned Federal laws, the Tribe's territorial rights, as well as the inherent interest of the CSKT in the HPRCSIT that are the results of activities of their ancestors, award to any firm other than the CSKT Tribe is simply not feasible.

5. No solicitation package will be issued. This Notice of Intent is not a request for competitive quotations; however, interested persons may identify their interest and capability to respond to this requirement. The Government will consider responses received by 2:00 PM Pacific Time on 5 July 2017. Inquiries will only be accepted via email to monique.a.paano@usace.army.mil. No telephone requests will be honored.

A determination by the Government not to compete the proposed acquisition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement in the future.