Utility Locating Services at BARC and US National Arboretum

The Agricultural Research Service, Northeast Area Administrative office, Acquisition and Personal Property office intends to solicit and award a single Indefinite Delivery-Requirements contract for utility marking services at Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), 10300 Baltimore Ave in Beltsville, MD and the US National Arboretum (USNA), 3501 New York Ave NE, in Washington DC.  This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 12.6 – Streamlined Procedures for Evaluation and Solicitation for Commercial Items along with FAR subpart 13.5 – Simplified Procedures for Certain Commercial Items and supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; offers are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued. This combined synopsis/solicitation is issued under Request for Quotation (RFQ) number 12305B22Q0037.

This requirement is being solicited under NAICS code 561990 and Set Aside: Total Small Business.  The SBA size standard for is acquisition is $12.0M. 

All FAR references are based off FAC 2022-04, Effective 30 January 2022.

This Indefinite Delivery-Requirements award for utility marking services at BARC and USNA is for a base one-year period, with 4 option years. The initial period of performance for the base period is anticipated to start 01 March 2022. All quantities on Attachments and Exhibits are estimates only. Firm-Fixed Price task orders will be issued for any number of actual quantities, with invoicing allowed for actual performance against the pricing in Exhibit A.

FAR 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors-Commercial, is applicable to this acquisition. An addendum will be added in Section L.

FAR 52.212-2, Evaluation of Offerors, is applicable to this acquisition.

The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. FAR Part 13 Simplified Acquisition Procedures utilizing Lowest Priced Technically Acceptable (LPTA) factors will be used for the evaluation process. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers:

    Technical Factor #1- Offeror’s organization shall have at least five years’ experience in performing utility locating/marking services and individual(s) performing the services shall work directly for the company submitting the offer.  Failure to meet either of these requirements will cause the offeror to be found unacceptable.

    Technical Factor #2- Offeror must certify they own and are qualified to use a SONDE device.  Failure to certify this requirement will cause the offeror to be found unacceptable.

    Technical Factor #3- Offeror must price all mint green fields in Exhibit A, the bid schedule.  Failure to price all mint green fields OR price at $0.00 OR leave blank will cause the offeror to be found unacceptable.

    Technical Factor #4- Offeror must submit contact information for two relevant contracts they’ve worked within the previous three years and receive a satisfactory or better rating from those entities.  Failure to provide two relevant contracts and contacts will cause the offeror to be found unacceptable.  A below satisfactory response from any contact may cause the offeror to be unacceptable.

If an offeror receives an adjectival rating of “unacceptable” in any factor they will not be eligible for contract award.

*The Government reserves the right to conduct a price realism analysis for any or all offerors it deems necessary.

Offeror must sign and date the 52.212-1 Addendum found of page 13, along with all amendments posted to beta.sam.gov for 12305B22Q0037. 

All offerors are advised to submit a copy of their FAR Reps and Certs Report out of sam.gov in lieu of filling out and submitting the provisions listed in this synopsis/solicitation to meet the requirements of FAR 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications-Commercial Items.  See 52.212-1 Addendum for additional information.  Directions for doing this.  From your company’s home within sam.gov, click on Reps and Certs.  Under the company info box, you’ll see a ‘Download Report’ drop-down.  Select ‘FAR’.  You can then save a pdf of all your reps and certs. 

FAR Clause 52.212-4, Contract Terms and Conditions-Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition and no addendum has been added.

FAR Clause 52.212-5, Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders-Commercial Items, applies to this acquisition and applicable clauses within 52.212-5 to this acquisition have been marked with three X’s.

Other additional FAR Clauses have been added to this synopsis/solicitation. If they are incorporated by reference in this synopsis/solicitation, use acquisition.gov to read them in their entirety.

Submittals Formats: Only Electronic submissions via email will be accepted due to Contract Specialist working remotely. 

Offers are due to the Contract Specialist, Mr. David Hildebrand, at david.hildebrand@usda.gov by 5:00 PM (CST) 23 February 2022.

For information regarding this synopsis/solicitation, please contact Mr. David Hildebrand at david.hildebrand@usda.gov.  Only written submitted questions will be given a response. They will be answered via a Questions from Industry posting to sam.gov. Due to USDA-ARS operating remotely, Mr. Hildebrand is only available via email.

Notice to Offeror(s): Funds are not presently available for this contract. The Government reserves the right to cancel this solicitation, either before or after the closing date. In the event the Government cancels this solicitation, the Government has no obligation to reimburse an offeror for any costs incurred.

Site Visit: No Site visit will be conducted.