Department of the Army, Baltimore District, Corps of Engineer, 10 South Howard Street, Room 7000, Baltimore, MD 21201-1715

S -- PRIVATIZATION UNDER 10 USC 2688, "UTILITY SYSTEMS CONVEYANCE AUTHORITY" OF POTABLE WATER AND WASTEWATER UTILITY SYSTEMS AT FORT MEADE, MARYLAND DUE 121099 POC Edward Rutherford 410-962-0190 or Tom Winkel 410-962-0987 WEB: USACE, Baltimore District, Utility Privitization Website, http://www.nab.usace.army.mil/Privatization/utility.html. E-MAIL: Utility Privitization E-mail address, privitization@usace.army.mil. The Government is seeking responsible potential sources interested in the privatization of the U.S. Army-owned potable water treatment and distribution and wastewater treatment and collection systems located at Fort Meade, Maryland. Fort Meade is located in Anne Arundel County, near Odenton, and is between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland. The Fort Meade Military Reservation covers about 13,000 acres and is predominantly a mixture of exclu-sive Federal and proprietary jurisdiction. The Installation has roughly 300 administrative build-ings including a motor pool and photo lab and about 3,000 family housing units. Privatization is defined as the transfer of ownership, responsibilities for investments, upgrade, plant replacement and continued operation and maintenance of the Army-owned utility systems to a municipal, pri-vate, regional, district, or cooperative utility company or to another non-Department of Defense entity. This also includes environmental compliance. Fort Meade currently owns and operates self-contained potable water and wastewater utility systems. The Installation's primary (about 81 percent) source of water is surface water from the Little Patuxent River. There are also six on-site wells. Raw surface water is pumped from the Low-Lift Pumping Station located near Maryland Route 198 to Fort Meade's Water Treatment Plant (WTP) through three 12-inch diameter water mains. The WTP was initially constructed around 1919, but was substantially upgraded in 1942, 1956, 1968, 1984 and most recently in 1986. The maximum capacity of the WTP is estimated at 4,100 gallons per minute (gpm) or 5.9 million gallons per day (MGD). WTP tankage is sized, however, for a production rate of 7.5 MGD. The water distribution system consists of about 97 miles of pipe that range in size from 4-inches to 20-inches in diameter. There are also about 1,250 building services, 560 main valves and 635 fire hydrants. On-site storage with a combined capacity of 3.2 million gallons is pro-vided from six elevated storage tanks and one standpipe. The distribution system was incre-mentally installed from the 1920s to the 1970s and was upgraded in the 1970s. Fort Meade's Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant (AWWTP) was constructed in 1983-84 and is capable of treating an average daily flow of 4.5 MGD. Current daily flows to the AWWTP are approximately 3.0 MGD and peak flows of 7.8 MGD have been observed. A por-tion of the excess plant capacity is used to provide denitrification. Industrial and domestic wastewater is collected within Fort Meade and from the adjacent Federal Youth Prison and con-veyed to the AWWTP -via about 70 miles of sewer line that range in size from 4-inches to 48-inches in diameter. A large majority of the pipe is a Terra Cotta type clay pipe. The collection system also contains about 1,400 manholes and 11 lift stations. The collection system was in-crementally installed from the 1920s to the 1970s and was upgraded in the 1970s. The specific elements of the privatized service requirement for Fort Meade are:(1) service to all areas within the Fort Meade Military Reservation and to all Federal service premises currently served by the Government-owned systems, regardless of whether the service premises are within areas of exclusive Federal, concurrent or proprietary jurisdiction or whether service premises (such as the Federal Youth Prison) are located outside of the Fort Meade Military Reservation; (2) ability to integrate the on-Post systems with off-Post utility systems, to include the ability to directly connect one or more unspecified service premises to off-Post utility systems or to con-nect unspecified off-Post service premises to the on-Post wastewater collection and treatment systems; (3) the ability to provide an independent source of potable water that is sufficient to satisfy up to 50 percent of Fort Meade's total potable water service requirement without utiliz-ing either the Government's raw water supplies or the on-site WTP; and (4) ownership and op-eration of wastewater treatment facilities as a Publicly Owned Treatment Work (POTW) pursu-ant to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). This request for information (RFI) is a component of a systematic process to implement the De-partment of the Army's utility privatization program. If responsive statements of interest are re-ceived, a follow-on element of the process may be an industry forum to be held at Fort Meade or the US Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District. The forum would be scheduled for within two to four weeks from the receipt of expressions of interest. Depending on the level of interest, the forum would consist of either sequential meetings with each respondent, a group or subgroup of respondents, or a combination thereof. If an industry forum is determined neces-sary, notification will be provided by way of an (internet) amendment to this advertisement. It is anticipated that any proposal received in response to a privatization request for proposals (RFP) will require a certification of an offeror's legal right to providethe required service and the capa-bility to initiate the service within a reasonable time (e.g., 30 to 90 days) after contract award. It is further anticipated that the failure to initiate the required service within a reasonable time after contract award would be subject to FAR part 49 Termination of Contracts. The statement of interest submitted shall address all of the following general criteria, as a mini-mum, as applied collectively and individually to the potable water treatment, potable water dis-tribution, wastewater treatment and wastewater collection systems: (1) the identity of the entity providing the expression of interest and, if different, the identity of the prospective privatized service provider(s); (2) the privatized service provider's capability and experience in the owner-ship of similar systems and in the ownership, operation, expansion and maintenance of similar systems; (3) financial capacity to purchase, expand, maintain, and operate a utility system; (4) a statement expressing a willingness and understanding of an obligation to provide continuous utility service, notwithstanding the existence or term of a written utility service contract; (5) un-derstanding of any applicable state or local utility law or franchise requirements, capability of complying with such requirements, and a representation of the legal right to provide the applica-ble service (currently or within a reasonable time after contract award); (6) understanding of the federal, state, and local environmental laws and regulations, and familiarity and experience with environmental compliance procedures and regulations, to include an identification of any permits or licenses that may be required to construct, extend, modify, or connect facilities within Anne Arundel County. The statement of interest shall also address the capability and legal right to provide each of the specific privatized utility service requirements. To the extent a capability or legal right would involve the cooperation or involvement of a third party,the basis for such in-volvement MUST be described and assurances that the cooperation or involvement would be forthcoming MUST be provided. A statement of interest shall not exceed 30 pages in length. Posted 11/12/99 (W-SN400223). (0316)

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