RIO Grande Bentonite Inc.

RIO Grande Bentonite Inc., a Hispanic American-owned, self-certified small disadvantaged business based in Alamosa, Colorado, supplies portable sanitation equipment, waste management services, and bentonite products to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and National Interagency Fire Center as a prime contractor, competing exclusively under total small business set-asides or non-competed task orders against standing indefinite delivery vehicles.

RIO Grande Bentonite is a Subchapter S Corporation with a narrowly focused operational footprint: the vendor supplies portable toilets, handwashing stations, gray water trucks, refrigerated trailers, dumpsters, and bentonite products to support wildland fire suppression, all-hazard incident response, and prescribed fire operations across USDA Forest Service regions and federal land management agencies. Recent representative work includes a $101,034 delivery order from USDA Forest Service Region 3 (Southwestern Region) in September 2025 for portable toilets and handwashing stations, an $89,111.15 delivery order from Region 2 (Rocky Mountain Region) in June 2024 for equipment rentals, and a $42,960.10 purchase order from Region 2 in August 2024 for garbage dumpster and container services. Task order activity accelerated significantly from 2024 onward—three awards in 2023 to seventeen in 2024 and fifteen in 2025—reflecting seasonal demand surge during fire season across western states.

Customer concentration is extreme: the top five agencies account for 87% of recent awards by count and 99% of combined potential value. The National Interagency Fire Center dominates on dollars (11 awards, $17.8 million combined potential value), while USDA Forest Service Region 2 leads on volume (26 awards, $5.8 million). Region 3 accounts for 18 awards but only $427 thousand combined potential value, illustrating high-frequency small task orders. The vendor's customer base is entirely composed of USDA Forest Service operations, the National Park Service, and associated federal land management agencies, with no commercial or non-USDA federal exposure.

RIO Grande Bentonite holds five active Indefinite Delivery Contracts and Basic Ordering Agreements, all total small business set-asides awarded by the National Interagency Fire Center with ceilings ranging from $250,000 to $7.5 million and performance periods extending through 2027–2030. The flagship vehicle is a $7.5 million Incident Blanket Purchase Agreement for portable toilets and handwashing stations (BOA 1202RZ24T0064, awarded May 1, 2025, ultimate completion June 30, 2027), which has generated twelve task orders. Three additional $500,000 Indefinite Delivery Contracts for refrigerated trailers, potable and gray water trucks, and trailer-mounted handwashing stations (awarded February 2026) support Regions 1–9 and carry task-order activity through 2029–2030. A $250,000 IDC for refrigerated trailers across Regions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9 (1202RZ25T0074, awarded June 3, 2025) has generated twelve task orders. The awards are structured as firm fixed price with distributed performance across incident sites in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and other western states where Forest Service operations are concentrated, with on-call availability for up to 16-hour daily shifts.

NAICS concentration mirrors the service profile: Septic Tank and Related Services (562991) accounts for 30 awards; Support Activities for Forestry for 14 awards; and Solid Waste Collection for 11. PSC codes track identically—Lease/Rental of Sewage and Waste Facilities (Q250) for 30 awards and Natural Resources/Conservation Forest-Range Fire Suppression/Presuppression for 17. The vendor operates as a 100% prime contractor with no subcontract footprint.

Combined potential value across all 71 awards is $24.5 million, but only $1.4 million (6%) has been obligated to date, reflecting the transactional, seasonal nature of individual equipment rental and service task orders. RIO Grande Bentonite competes exclusively under small business set-asides or existing IDIQ vehicles; no full-and-open competitive awards appear in the footprint. The business model is defensibly narrow—equipment rental and emergency response logistics for wildland fire and natural disaster operations—and concentrated in a single customer ecosystem (USDA Forest Service and its authorized federal land management partners). Recompete risk and growth opportunity both hinge on maintaining and expanding the five active IDIQs with the National Interagency Fire Center through 2030.