Environmental Science Associates

Environmental Science Associates, doing business as ESA, a 100% employee-owned, self-certified small disadvantaged business headquartered in San Francisco, California, delivers environmental consulting, cultural resource management, and ecological assessment services to federal agencies as a prime contractor (97% of recent awards). ESA competes predominantly in full-and-open and set-aside procurements across multiple federal customer bases, with set-aside designations applied to roughly 30% of recent task orders under the GSA Multiple Award Schedule and smaller vehicles.

ESA's customer concentration splits across interior and maritime agencies. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dominates by potential value — 13 awards worth $103.1 million combined (57% of the vendor's total potential value across all agencies) — anchored by two $50 million single-award indefinite delivery contracts for regional architect-engineer environmental services on the Pacific Coast and South Atlantic Coast regions. The Bureau of Land Management California Region follows by award count (15 orders) but carries significantly lower per-order value ($1.4 million combined); the Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Army round out the top five customer agencies by either volume or dollars. Across 28 distinct customer agencies, the top five account for approximately 47% of awards by count and 68% of combined potential value. Representative recent prime work includes a $1.196 million time-and-materials delivery order from NOAA (April 2026) for national historic preservation action support across a one-base-plus-two-option-year structure, a $819 thousand delivery order from NOAA (September 2024) for National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 compliance support, a $760 thousand firm-fixed-price order from NOAA (July 2024) for Powhatan Tug marine debris removal in Sitka, Alaska, a $493 thousand sole-source purchase order from the Bureau of Reclamation (August 2024) for Habitat Project Database software development and support, and a $319 thousand firm-fixed-price delivery order from the U.S. Forest Service (September 2024) for a Class III cultural resources survey covering 2,880 acres in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

ESA holds position on multiple parent vehicles. The GSA Multiple Award Schedule (ceiling $4.2 million, expired September 2026) carries 37 task orders valued at $6.7 million combined and spans environmental consulting (Special Item Number 541620), remediation (562910REM), geographic information systems (541370GIS), engineering (541330ENG), and IT services (54151S). Labor categories range from Project Technician LI at $90.04 per hour to Senior Director LIII at $295.73 per hour, requiring associate to bachelor's degrees with zero to fifteen years of experience and no security clearances. ESA also holds a $50 million NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service single-award IDIQ for Pacific Coast regional architect-engineer environmental services (awarded July 2023, expiring July 2028, set-aside total small business), a $50 million NOAA NMFS single-award IDIQ for South Atlantic Coast regional architect-engineer services (awarded July 2023, expiring July 2028, set-aside total small business), a $10 million Bureau of Reclamation single-award indefinite delivery contract for monitoring services along the Middle Rio Grande corridor (awarded June 2024, expiring June 2029), and a $499,985.73 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service single-award IDIQ for cultural resource investigations across Regions 1 and 8 covering Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California, and Nevada (awarded December 2024, expiring December 2027). ESA also holds a $4.2 million GSA Federal Supply Schedule for environmental consulting, remediation, GIS, engineering, and IT services and participates in The Professional Services Schedule with 7 task orders valued at $811 thousand combined.

ESA's award activity accelerated from four awards in 2022 to twenty in 2024, declining to one in 2025 and two through mid-2026. Six awards (combined potential value $3.1 million) reach ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and face recompete exposure. Service Contract Inventory (SCI) data covering federal contracts above the $150,000 reporting threshold shows $199 thousand in invoiced revenue across FY2023–FY2024, with invoicing of $13 thousand in FY2023 and $186 thousand in FY2024; SCI does not capture FTE-level data for these contracts and covers only a subset of ESA's federal service work. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable contracts median around $918.83 per hour, ranging from approximately $378 per hour at the tenth percentile to $5,787 per hour at the ninety percentile, reflecting variation in task complexity and labor grade.

ESA operates as a prime on substantially all work — 97% of recent awards — with minimal subcontract engagement. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors account for 0% of total contractor hours, indicating ESA builds its own delivery teams. Named sub relationships are sparse; recent subcontract work includes environmental and biologist services under Tetra TECH as prime (soil salinity monitoring and breeding activity monitoring on the Novato Baylands project, awarded February and May 2024) and survey and design engineering services under HDR Engineering as prime (maintenance dredging at Yokohama North Dock, awarded June 2025).

ESA's capability portfolio centers on environmental assessment, cultural resource surveys and management, habitat conservation, environmental compliance documentation, monitoring systems, and ecological field work. Primary NAICS concentration spans Environmental Consulting Services (42 awards), Remediation Services (21 awards), and Engineering Services (3 awards). PSC concentration reflects the same profile: Other Environmental Services (18 awards), Special Studies/Analysis—Environmental Assessments (17 awards), and Architect and Engineering—General classifications (26 awards combined across landscape design and general categories). Work is performed across multiple regions — San Francisco, Seattle, South Lake Tahoe, Albuquerque, Vicksburg, and other field locations — supporting federal land management, habitat restoration, endangered species compliance, and infrastructure environmental analysis. ESA brings over forty years of environmental consulting experience and holds demonstrated expertise in cultural resource monitoring, archaeological surveys, federal environmental compliance, and technical documentation across NOAA, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.