NFWF Coastal Watershed Resilience Assessments for Seven U.S. Watersheds Request for Proposals: Responses to Offeror s Questions 11/9/16

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1 NFWF Coastal Watershed Resilience Assessments for Seven U.S. Watersheds Request for Proposals: Responses to Offeror s Questions 11/9/16 Background Documents/Related Products 1) Can NFWF provide the name of the contractor used for the Southeast Atlantic Coast regional resilience assessment or for the Cape Fear Watershed resilience assessment? 2) Will NFWF provide any documents or products from the reference Southeast Atlantic Coast regional assessment or Cape Fear watershed assessment? 3) What is the model referenced in the RFP that the NEMAC is going to be applying? Is it the same spatial analysis used in Cape Fear and the South Atlantic assessment? The National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC) conducted the Cape Fear River Basin/ Southeast Atlantic Coastal Resilience Assessment and, as noted in the RFP, is completing the remaining regional assessments. Dial Cordy and Associates, Inc. conducted the Cape Fear River Basin and South Atlantic Coast Fish and Wildlife Habitat Assessment. Maps depicting the resilience hubs derived from the Cape Fear River Basin/ Southeast Atlantic Coastal Resilience Assessment and the Cape Fear River Basin and South Atlantic Coast Fish and Wildlife Habitat Assessment, along with a schematic of the Resilience Hub model, are available on NFWF s Coastal Resilience webpage. 4) What is the anticipated volume of data, products, and guidance from other assessments that NFWF intends to provide to the Contractor? Please refer to the above response regarding the products available from previous efforts. NFWF does not anticipate additional products to be provided upon contract at this point in time, but reference material and guidance may be provided as the project develops. 5) Can you provide more information about the scope of work and deliverables being produced by NEMAC in identifying the resilience hubs in the Northeast Atlantic Coast and the California Coast regions? No, these deliverables are still in development. Level of Effort/Award amount 6) Can NFWF provide any guidance relative to the amount of funding available or the level of effort expected for the project?

2 Offerors should estimate a budget and level of effort based on their previous experience and the requirements of the RFP. Please refer to the timeline outlined on page 4 of the RFP for the schedule for the individual watershed assessments. Regarding stakeholder meetings and site visits, we would anticipate two to three in-person stakeholder meetings, with follow up as needed, for each watershed and approximately two site visits one initial site visit when stakeholder meetings are scheduled, as well as one towards the end of each watershed assessment to ground truth the analysis and projects identified. Please note that previous products or approaches are not intended to establish limits or preference for a potential bidder s approach for the scope of work and deliverables outlined in the current RFP. Contractor Eligibility/Conflict of Interest 7) NFWF received various inquiries regarding the potential eligibility of current and prior NFWF contractors/subcontractors engaged in related work, such as the Southeast Atlantic Coast and Cape Fear assessments, as well as questions from various entities whether identifying potential subcontractors in their proposals is either required or encouraged. The solicitation is open to any and all prior or current NFWF contractors, or subcontractors of those contractors, engaged in related resilience assessment efforts. This would include a potential bidder intending to subcontract work under a potential award to a prior or current contractor or subcontractor. NFWF does not perceive an unfair competitive advantage for such potential offerors as the resilience hub analysis currently being compiled is not a precursor to the deliverables that will be developed by the successful offeror for this new RFP. NFWF would work with the selected Contractor to integrate the information from that analysis to the end product deliverables through a standardized process, thereby mitigating any competitive advantage of any offeror who has knowledge of any preliminary information from the current resilience hub analysis. Offerors may choose to identify in their proposals potential entities it proposes or intends to engage as subcontractors for this contract. This is neither required nor necessarily encouraged or discouraged. Although NFWF in its Contract of Services retains the right to approve all subcontractors of the Contractor, NFWF does not and will not seek to influence the successful offeror on the selection of subcontractors as a condition of award. Ultimately, it is the Contractor who is responsible for the successful execution of the contracted services. 8) Would work on Task 4 (resilience project identification) result in a conflict of interest for a contractor who wanted to seek NFWF or federal funding for future implementation of any of the identified projects? The scope of this RFP only includes the identification of projects, and there are no current funding opportunities for future implementation of identified projects issued by NFWF. Identification of projects is not a guarantee of any future funding or funding opportunity. NFWF cannot speak to the requirements of any potential sources of funds outside of NFWF (e.g., federal).

3 Process/Methodology 9) Is NFWF looking for a similar approach and results for this new work as was generated by the previous Cape Fear / South Atlantic project? If not, what are some added features or other approaches that NFWF would like employed as part of these 7 new watersheds? NFWF is open to considering any approaches that address the objectives and deliverables outlined in the RFP. 10) For selection of, and data gathering for fish, marine, and other nearshore and offshore species, how far offshore would NFWF and partners like the analysis to reach for these watersheds? A nexus should exist between the habitat upon which selected species are dependent and areas where projects could be implemented in the watershed to benefit community resilience. 11) Would it be of value to assess climate change vulnerability of any of the components (community assets, natural features, and/or species of interest) in the watersheds of interest? (i.e., utilizing local and contractor expert knowledge in sensitivity and adaptive capacity coupled with NEMAC exposure to compute vulnerability?) Climate-related threats and the degree to which a project can mitigate them should be incorporated in the identification and description of projects. 12) The RFP mentions that each HUC-8 watershed will have a watershed technical committee. Can you elaborate on what organizations will participate in those committees? Watershed technical committees will be organized by NFWF and NOAA and will include at least representation from NFWF and national and local NOAA and Army Corps staff. 13) In the description of the Cape Fear work, the RFP mentions that local stakeholders were consulted to gather critical data Does this mean identify/gather new data through pgis, surveys, etc., or does this just refer to stakeholders identifying resources where data could be found? Is the Contractor expected to create new datasets or identify and gather existing datasets? No new data are expected to be created as part of this project. The intent is for the selected Contractor to identify and synthesize existing data.

4 14) Does NFWF have identified criteria, used across the country or customized for each watershed, to help assess the resiliency projects (i.e., feasibility, proposed impact risk, cost, etc.)? If not, would the Contractor be responsible for developing a portfolio of assessment criteria and/or criteria customized for each watershed? In thinking about the technical approach, does NFWF have any specific guidelines constraining selection of potential resiliency projects, such as project timing, size, cost, number of projects per watershed? Please refer to the key factors to highlight and the different project categories addressing timing ( shovel-ready or in planning phase) under Resilience Project Identification in the Scope of Work section of the RFP. There are no specific guidelines on size, cost, or number of projects identified, but the analysis being completed by NEMAC, when integrated with the watershed level fish and wildlife habitat assessment, will help identify the resilience hubs to guide where projects are anticipated to have the greatest benefit for community and fish and wildlife resilience. 15) On p. 3 under Scope of Work, it says that the Contractor will work closely with NOAA and USACE. Will there be anticipated coordination with USFWS and DFWs on topical issues like endangered and threatened species protection priorities? Coordination with relevant agencies is anticipated as part of gathering stakeholder input for each watershed assessment. Anticipated Deliverables: 16) Would NFWF find added value from a delivery of a decision support tool capable of replicating all analyses in addition to the data layers packaged together as part of the deliverables? 17) Would NFWF find value in provision of the data products on a GIS web portal for data viewing and or/download? NFWF seeks the deliverables as outlined in the RFP. Any additional related work can be discussed in the proposal package, but should not detract from these deliverables. 18) Can you please clarify the desired geospatial deliverables for the watersheds? Please refer to the Deliverables section on page 4 of the RFP. 19) The Timeline table on page 7 of the RFP shows a column for Final Project List and Fact Sheets Due but fact sheets are not mentioned elsewhere in the RFP. Are fact sheets included in the deliverables, and if so, can you provide more information about them? NFWF seeks the project information and deliverables as outlined in the RFP in the Scope of Work and Deliverables sections. Fact sheets are not a specific required deliverable beyond that information.

5 Application Package/RFP: 20) Is the link that you sent to us the actual RFP? Yes, the full RFP is accessible at the link provided. 21) The RFP requests qualifications for principal investigator(s) and subcontractors. Can resumes for additional technical staff with relevant qualifications also be included? Yes. 22) Contractor s Past Performance says to include an example of at least one report or analysis conducting a similar assessment for NFWF or other organizations. Should the report itself be included or is including a link to the report(s) sufficient? Providing a working link with direct access to the example work product is acceptable. 23) Is past performance contact information required? No. 24) Please advise if there are Hourly Rate ranges for specific labor categories (i.e. GIS analyst, project scientist I, program manager) or if the offeror should use its rates currently in practice. NFWF does not specify hourly rate ranges for specific labor categories.