BD27-1 Feasibility Study for Clean Water Act Section 404 Assumption

The State of Utah Division of Water Quality is requesting proposals for a feasibility study on Clean Water Act Section 404 permitting assumption, with proposals due August 25, 2026. The study will examine the state's capacity to assume administrative authority over Section 404 permitting, which regulates discharges of dredged and fill material into Waters of the United States. This is a single-award RFP to the highest-scoring responsive and responsible vendor.

The scope requires a comprehensive feasibility report within 6–9 months of award, with a firm deadline of June 15, 2027. Eight primary deliverable tasks span background research, mapping of assumable waters (with GIS shapefiles and KMZ files), legal framework and gap analysis, agency roles and structure recommendations, resource needs and funding identification, benefits and challenges analysis, and a strategic implementation roadmap. The contractor must conduct mandatory 90-minute kick-off and task-specific meetings (30–90 minutes each), deliver an executive summary and presentation, and prepare a fact sheet. Critical feasibility sections must be completed by February 1, 2027, to align with the 2027 legislative session. All work products become property of the Division of Water Quality upon delivery.

The project budget ceiling is $250,000, and the vendor must guarantee pricing for the entire project duration. Proposals are limited to 20 pages (excluding resumes) and must address mandatory minimum requirements: ability to conduct business in Utah, capability to perform the scope, ability to meet deadlines, and prior experience in program feasibility studies. Cost proposals must itemize personnel titles, hourly rates, task-specific costs, indirect costs, overhead, and total evaluated cost. Evaluation totals 400 points, though specific point allocations are not detailed in the available documents. The contractor must maintain workers' compensation insurance at statutory limits, commercial general liability of at least $1 million per occurrence / $3 million aggregate, and provide comprehensive recordkeeping for six years post-payment. All technology must utilize existing State of Utah DTS cloud services where possible and demonstrate FedRAMP or GovRAMP compliance for data processing or storage.