Scientific, Technical, and Engineering Support for Plum Island Animal Disease Center Decontamination and Closure

In accordance with FAR 15.201 Exchanges with industry before receipt of proposals, THIS NOTICE IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI).

THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) OR A REQUEST FOR QUOTATIONS (RFQ). 

2.0 DISCLAIMER: 

This RFI 70RSAT22RFI000003 is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a solicitation. The Government cannot, and will not, accept any responses to this RFI to form binding agreements, contractual or otherwise. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. All information received in response to this RFI that is marked Proprietary will be handled accordingly. Please segregate proprietary information in your response. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned.

3.0 BACKGROUND: 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Office of National Laboratories (ONL) Plum Island Closure and Support (PICS) Program is issuing this RFI to gather information regarding scientific, technical and engineering capabilities to support decontamination and closure of the major facility biocontainment buildings at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC), located at Plum Island, New York. These activities will be performed as part of the PICS Program and once completed, Plum Island will be closed and available for conveyance from DHS to another entity through the General Services Administration (GSA) procedures.

NOTE:  The subject activities of this RFI do not entail the performance of the primary operations and maintenance functions or physical execution of decontamination activities for the biocontainment buildings at Plum Island. This is a new requirement and there is no incumbent providing these services.

The purpose of this RFI is to assess available capabilities to provide biological decontamination and decommissioning support services including, but not limited to:

• planning/executing scientific activities for decontamination method testing and evaluation (T&E) to include analyses involving various technologies, sampling approaches, monitoring methods, among others;
• translating results of method T&E into plans for terminal facility decontamination;
• delivery of engineering planning, engineering design, and logistics to support implementation of facility decontamination methods and/or independent third-party review of such developed products;
• integration of scientific, engineering and other technical data in order to produce a comprehensive facility decontamination plan;
• operation of an on-island mobile laboratory for provision of independent third-party verification/validation testing of biological and chemical indicators (SCBIs, spore strips, integrators); and
• development of documentation of verification/validation results for review by regulatory bodies.
• The Government currently owns a variety of assets and capabilities, some of which are listed below, but is interested in industry’s recommendations for  additional equipment or infrastructure considerations that would support the work outlined in this RFI:  environmental chamber to evaluate the effects of temperature and humidity on pathogen viability; Vaporized Hydrogen Peroxide generator; Paraformaldehyde fumigation generating equipment; Chlorine Dioxide generator; bio-contained space (including different finishes/materials) in which technologies may be evaluated for efficacy, while relevant parameters (humidity, ambient temperature, duration, air changes, etc.) may be controlled; a dedicated BSL-2 mobile decontamination laboratory to facilitate collection and manipulation of validation technologies (e.g., samples, BI’s, chemical indicators, etc.).

Each activity will be accomplished while working collaboratively with additional PICS federal and contracted personnel, both onsite and offsite. DHS is exclusively seeking responses from entities that have engaged in strategic planning, execution, and oversight/quality assurance of the execution of biological decontamination and closure activities at the facility level.

DHS requests that responders to this RFI address the questions and concepts posed in the attached document as part of any submittal.

If industry chooses to not respond to this RFI, that may be interpreted as a general lack of interest or lack of industry capability/expertise in the marketplace and will be considered in determining the resulting acquisition/procurement strategies to be used to satisfy these requirements.

4.0 RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS:

Responses to this RFI must be submitted via email to the Contract Specialist (Robert Marosz, robert.marosz@hq.dhs.gov) and Contracting Officer (John Whipple, john.whipple@hq.dhs.gov) by or before 10:00 AM EST on Tuesday, 4 January 2022. A list of the information being requested is contained in the attachment to this RFI.  

If the email response is greater than 10 megabytes (MB) in size, it must be divided for submission into multiple sequentially numbered emails of 10 MB or less. Please limit responses to no more than 15 pages. 

Responses to this RFI may be reviewed by Government technical experts drawn from staff within DHS and other Federal agencies. The Government will review vendor responses for market research purposes only. The Government does not intend to provide a response to submissions for this RFI, but the Government reserves the right to meet with respondents, either individually or as a group, regarding this RFI. These meetings may be scheduled at the Government’s discretion but are not guaranteed.