SPECIAL NOTICE
99 -- CROP Special Notice
- Notice Date
- 3/26/2010
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 115310
— Support Activities for Forestry
- Contracting Office
- Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, R-5 Southern California Province, Angeles N.F., 701 N. Santa Anita Ave., Arcadia, California, 91006
- ZIP Code
- 91006
- Solicitation Number
- blank
- Point of Contact
- Edmund Gee, Phone: (202) 205-1787
- E-Mail Address
-
eagee@fs.fed.us
(eagee@fs.fed.us)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The Coordinated Resource Offering Protocol (CROP) interactive website (www.crop-usa.com ) is now available to USFS contractors, investors, and the general public to quickly access continually updated woody biomass supply offerings expected to be generated from public forest lands within defined landscapes over an on-going five-year period. The interactive website allows the user to quickly access supply offerings from a variety of different search options (by agency, diameter size, specie, volume, year, location, project, NEPA phase, road conditions, or any combination of search options). CROP users are able to quickly see expected supply variations in offerings between field-level agencies (ranger districts, field offices, supervisor offices etc.). Information on live or dead supply offerings is immediately available, and the CROP Volume Haul Distance Feature allows fast access to recalculated supply volumes, supply characteristics, and resource supplier agencies within road distance selections. Mini-CROPs based on any combination of search options within haul distances are also immediately available to the user. Access to the CROP interactive website data is free of charge. The Federal CROP study pilot projects began in 2006 to address the growing fuel load problem and the realized potential for fostering catastrophic wildfires within major forest systems across the United States. The CROP model was initially developed in 2003, by Oregon-based Mater Engineering, to target unlevelized, erratic resource offerings from public forest lands that directly discouraged investor interest in working with public agencies to remove woody biomass from high fire risk forests and to restore forest health. The CROP model’s basic tenets are: •Focus on the volume proposed to be removed from the forest floor within a target period (5 years out). This is unlike other forest biomass projects that focus on biomass inventory. The deliverable is biomass removal performance, not biomass inventory that may or may not lead to biomass removal. •Work within a large enough geographic landscape (typically a 100-mile radial distance from a defined center point) that would: oMandate coordination of removal between public agencies within the CROP landscape. oFacilitate the use of long-term multi-agency stewardship contracts to achieve biomass removal performance within the CROP landscape. oHeighten public trust and support for biomass removal from public forest lands by focusing predominately on small diameter removal at landscape scale within a transparent process. oIncrease the certainty of levelized offerings from public agencies focused on biomass removal within the CROP landscape. oInvite investment back into the forest landscape to achieve fuel load reduction mandates and forest restoration. Since 2006, 20 Forest Service- and BLM-funded CROP pilot projects encompassing 50 million acres of forestland across the US has been completed. The CROP evaluations were conducted in 9 geographic regions where forest restoration and fuel load reduction efforts are high priorities. For example, CROP pilots were targeted in regions that have high-predicted insect and disease mortality increasing risk of catastrophic wildfire. The predicted insect and disease mortality map below was developed for the CROP project by the Conservation Biology Institute using 190 insect and disease models (for 2006) prepared by government agencies across the US. The map show 10%-20% mortality rates (yellow), and >20% mortality rates (red). The maps below illustrate the correlation of mortality rates to selected CROP pilot project locations: CROP pilot projects were offered in other regions where high mortality rates are noted in the map above, but intense workloads prevented agency participation. Regardless, the list of agencies that did participate and provide valuable resource removal data for the CROP projects is impressive: 50 national forests 115 ranger districts 49 BLM field offices multiple state agencies in 15 states 183 counties 280 townships All CROP projects were started and completed within a nine calendar month (or shorter) period of time. Contact information: Ed Gee, Forest Management, 202-205-1787.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/USDA/FS/91T5/blank/listing.html)
- Record
- SN02104438-W 20100328/100326235532-7962b5622c1117235fff9a83b22133e3 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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