Inactive

This is justification for an order under BOA 1305220GNWWG0051, for vessel services to recover an adrift Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoy within the Papahanaumokuakea Marine ... This is justification for an order under BOA 1305220GNWWG0051, for vessel services to recover an adrift Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) buoy within the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (PMNM). The Government intends to solicit Hawaii Resource Group, LLC, located at 1213 Ahui Street, Honolulu, HI 96813, for this requirement. The Hawaii Resource Group, LLC shall provide the vessel, crew, fuel, consumables, and all materials required to recover the adrift DART buoy and remaining mooring, and deliver it to a commercial pier in Honolulu, Hawaii. NDBC will arrange for the tractor trailer for shipment back to NDBC. The Hawaii Resource Group, LLC Merchant Vessel (M/V) Imua has availability from June 16, 2022 through June 30, 2022 to perform this work, and is the only vessel that can respond in the most expedient timeframe to recover the aforementioned DART buoy. The NDBC expects these services to take fifteen (15) days due to the distance from Honolulu, HI to the adrift buoy floating in the PMNM. The agency need for the services is so urgent that providing a competition would result in unacceptable delays. The DART buoy to be recovered is currently adrift within the PMNM. The PMNM is a sanctuary for numerous protected species and highly sensitive national resources. The buoy and the remaining attached mooring have the potential to inflict irreparable harm to these natural resources in the event of a grounding incident, or near ground incident, in which the mooring remnant is dragged across coral formations. Recovering this buoy prior to it going aground is imperative in protecting these resources and will also prevent the possibility of a significantly more expensive requirement in the event that it does go aground within the PMNM. Additionally, the regulatory requirements to access the PMNM and acquire the permit to perform work within the PMNM are extensive and time consuming. Based upon information provided by the PMNM Permit Specialist, these additional requirements include the following: an alien species inspection of the ballast water, a lengthy and thorough hull inspection, potential hull cleaning with follow on inspection, extensive risk assessment of the vessel by the PMNM staff, permit and cultural briefing, verification of VMS connectivity to the NOAA OLE system, and crew education on PMNM Best Management Practices. Moreover, if a hull cleaning was required, the State of Hawaii currently has a moratorium on in-water-cleaning in DOT harbors, so any other vessel would certainly need to make use of a dry dock facility to accomplish this task. In this respect it is more expedient to make use of a vessel that is currently performing work within the PMNM, to ensure that the time to recover the buoy can be minimized and alleviate the harmful potential of the buoy going aground or becoming entangled in coral formations. As previously stated, the M/V Imua owned by the Hawaii Resource Group is the only vessel that meets the above criteria and has availability in the near term in order to conduct this operation.