25 26 Cow Creek Road Salvage Timber Sale C

The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Florida Forest Service is soliciting sealed bids for Cow Creek Road Salvage Timber Sale C, a salvage timber sale involving approximately 303 acres within the south and southeastern perimeter of the Cow Creek Wildfire area in the Black Prong and Cow Creek Tracts of Goethe State Forest, located north and south of County Road 326 in Levy County, Florida. The procurement includes dead, dying, and green pine timber products consisting of salvage pine pulpwood, salvage pine chip-n-saw, salvage pine sawtimber, and fuelwood. The harvest area is divided into two categories: a Primary area of approximately 138 acres designated for immediate harvest and a Contingency area of approximately 165 acres that will be monitored by the Forester-in-Charge to determine if additional harvesting is required. All operations must commence within ten calendar days of contract execution, and the contract term is twelve months. Sealed bids will be opened on May 14, 2026 at 11:00 AM EDT at 5353 NE 39th Avenue, Gainesville, Florida 32609. A mandatory site review with the Forester-in-Charge must be conducted before harvest operations begin to address exclusion areas around waterbodies and red-cockaded woodpecker cluster habitat. The Forester-in-Charge will designate timber for removal and may include scattered clusters of infected or dying trees; however, the buyer is not obligated to harvest non-merchantable timber or timber deemed undersized or economically unviable. There is no volume estimate provided for this sale, and interested parties may obtain complete bid information by contacting Kari Hurst at (352) 566-5221.

This salvage sale is being advertised simultaneously with Cow Creek Road Salvage Sales A and B, with a restriction stipulating that if the same bidder places the highest acceptable bid on more than one of these three sales, the successful bidder must forfeit all but one sale to the next highest bidder to allow for faster response and adequate equipment deployment for simultaneous harvesting. No specific set-aside designations or disadvantaged enterprise restrictions are mentioned in the procurement documents. No incumbent vendors or current contractors are identified, and no existing infrastructure or technology integration requirements are specified. The procurement documents do not contain information regarding possible award values or budget ranges for this timber salvage contract. The Florida Forest Service reserves the right to reject any and all bids and to waive any irregularity in bids received.