SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- Environmental Fate and Exposure
- Notice Date
- 11/7/2012
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541620
— Environmental Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, 6707 Democracy Blvd., Suite 105, Bethesda, Maryland, 20894, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20894
- Solicitation Number
- NIHLM2013616
- Archive Date
- 11/30/2012
- Point of Contact
- Kimberly Pringle, Phone: 301-496-6546
- E-Mail Address
-
kp271m@nih.gov
(kp271m@nih.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This is a Sources Sought Notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding the availability and technical capability of qualified business sources. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Code is 541620 with a small business size standard of $14 million. This Sources Sought Notice is for informational and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as an obligation or commitment by the Government. This notice is intended strictly for Market Research ONLY. 1.0 BACKGROUND The National Library of Medicine (NLM) develops and maintains the Hazardous Substances Data Bank (HSDB) which is a part of TOXNET, a group of databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health and toxic releases. HSDB focuses on the toxicology of potentially hazardous chemicals. It is enhanced with information on human exposure, industrial hygiene, emergency handling procedures, environmental fate, regulatory requirements, nanomaterials, and related areas. All data are referenced and derived from a core set of books, government documents, technical reports, selected primary journal literature and other sources. HSDB is peer-reviewed by the Scientific Review Panel (SRP), a committee of experts in the major subject areas within the data bank's scope. HSDB is organized into individual chemical records, contains over 5000 such records and is accessible free of charge, via TOXNET at: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov 2.0 PURPOSE and OBJECTIVES The purpose of this procurement is to receive professional services to obtain information on the environmental fate and exposure of chemicals and/or substances and related information such as chemical physical properties, production, manufacturing, risk assessment and end use in products. This effort requires detailed knowledge of environmental fate and exposure sources and proven experience with environmental fate estimation models, and chemical risk assessment. The Hazardous Substances Data Bank has approximately 150 data fields that are grouped into sections which include specific data. The information and services obtained in this procurement are to populate Section 3 (Chemical and Physical Properties), Section 7 (Environmental Fate and Exposure), and portions of other Sections when that data relates to the information and/or sources used in Sections 3 and 7. All information obtained for these sections are to be entered into the NLM/SIS provided Specialized Information Services Edit/Update System, SSEUS, for review. Section numbers are for sections as labeled in SSEUS, not the public HSDB Table of Contents sections. The contractor shall perform the following tasks: 1. Identify and compile all data and information necessary to populate Sections 3 and 7. See http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/help/hsdbf.htm for a description of HSDB data fields where sections are listed in boldface. Coordination with the primary HSDB contractor will be necessary. This information is required for new and existing HSDB records that need to be updated. Access to SSEUS will be given at time of award for all data delivery. 2. Identify and compile all data and information necessary to populate portions of other fields related to information in Sections 3 and 7 such as, but not limited to, manufacturing, production, use and export data in Section 2. Coordination with the primary HSDB contractor will be necessary. 3. Summarize the fate and exposure of chemicals in the environment. In the absence of experimental values, estimate and calculate environmental values. 4. Efficiently retrieve full text articles from environmental databases, extract portions of the articles for HSDB and refer to the articles during peer review meetings while consulting with subject matter experts and the NLM HSDB team. 5. Provide health effects and toxicology information available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) such as Toxic Substances Control Act Test Submissions (TSCATS) and other government agencies. 6. Provide a Senior Environmental Scientist for attendance at the Scientific Review Panel (SRP) meetings and provide an Information Specialist as needed at the SRP meetings. The SRP normally meets for 3 days, 3 times a year. 7. Identify chemicals or substances which may be hazardous to the public and the environment, for which there is a public demand for information, for which there may be a hazardous risk of exposure and/or credible reports, studies or information exists that would support an HSDB record be built or updated. Collect and maintain databases for sorting and prioritizing chemicals. 8. Provide chemical and physical properties data for related NLM/SIS databases that link to HSDB such as ChemIDplus. These properties may include: boiling point, melting point, solubility, octanol/water partition coefficient, and other chemical/physical properties as specified by the project officer. 9. Provide information that aids in improving approaches to estimate chemical exposure. This may include identifying routes of exposure, identifying specific use, linking specific products and general use categories. 10. Identify and provide information for alternative chemicals to consider in the interest of safety for specific uses such as information from the EPA Design for the Environment (DfE) alternatives assessments. 11. Provide data and information for special projects related to the tasks and information described in Tasks 1-10. Meaning, similar activities may be performed outside of the usual record building schedule. This task may be in support of special enhancements to HSDB to improve the currentness of the data and/or expand content or impact on existing or new user groups. 3.0 PROJECT REQUIREMENTS 1. Provide the fate and exposure information identified in the literature as described in Tasks 1-11 for chemicals and substances assigned by NLM. Provide corrected records based on SRP comments in final format after peer review. 2. Provide any additional related data as described in Tasks 1-11 in electronic format. 3. Provide physical/chemical measured properties of substances as requested in a specified electronic format. 4. Provide estimated physical/chemical properties of substances as requested in a specific electronic format. 5. Provide abstracts for TSCATS in an electronic format specified by the contracting officer's representative. 6. Submit monthly status reports electronically to the NLM/SIS project officer(s) and include the following: 1. Number of HSDB records completed 2. Summary of costs and labor hours associated with tasks 3. Description of special information provided, i.e. physical/chemical data 4. Number of submission abstracts 5. General description of any activities performed 4.0 ANTICIPATED PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE NLM anticipates that the period of performance will be for one year from the date of award with two additional one-year option periods. 5.0 CAPABILITY STATEMENT/INFORMATION SOUGHT Capabilities of Organization Vendors must possess all of the following: 1. Demonstrated extensive experience in risk assessment, Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship (QSAR) models and other estimation and calculation methods associated with environmental fate. 2. Demonstrated extensive experience in chemical and biological substance database building and management and project management. 3. Demonstrated extensive experience searching scientific databases and collecting retrieved information in an organized manner to make readily available for reference and retrieval. 4. Personnel that includes: Senior Information Specialist and Senior Scientist who has earned a doctoral degree in chemistry, environmental science or very closely related field. 5. Demonstrated ability to perform the tasks described in the project requirements section. 6. Experience with and knowledge of international toxicology and risk assessment information and harmonization efforts. 7. Experience utilizing the Hazardous Substances Data Bank, TOXNET and familiarity with the contents and relationship between the databases.   The following are highly desired: 1. Experience utilizing the Specialized Information Services Entry Update System, SSEUS. 2. Experience utilizing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Estimation Program Interface, EPI Suite, software. Interested firms responding to this Sources Sought Notice must adhere to the following: (a) Provide a capability statement demonstrating relevant experience, skills, and ability to fulfill the Government's requirement. The capability statement should be complete and contain sufficient detail for the Government to make an informed decision regarding capabilities; however, the statement should not exceed 10 pages. (b) The capability statement must identify the responder's business type and size; DUNS number; NAICS code, and technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses. (c) All capability statements must be submitted electronically no later than 12:00 pm local prevailing time on Thursday, November 8, 2012 to Kimberly Pringle at pringlek@mail.nih.gov. Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use the information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary information in any resultant solicitation.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/HHS/NIH/OAM/NIHLM2013616/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: vendor site, United States
- Record
- SN02926284-W 20121109/121107235240-2367347ae63b366398b4fe131cd3f8f7 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's FBO Daily Index Page |