OHM Remediation Services Corporation

OHM Remediation Services Corporation BNUMBER: B-274644; B-274644.2; B-274644.3 DATE: December 23, 1996 TITLE: OHM Remediation Services Corporation ********************************************************************** DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE A protected decision was issued on the date below and was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This version has been redacted or approved by the parties involved for public release. Matter of:OHM Remediation Services Corporation File: B-274644; B-274644.2; B-274644.3 Date:December 23, 1996 Joseph G. Billings, Esq., and Lawrence P. Block, Esq., Riley and Artabane, for the protester. Shlomo D. Katz, Esq., and Kenneth B. Weckstein, Esq., Epstein, Becker & Green, P.C., and Ronald N. Stewart, for ICF Kaiser Engineers, Inc., an intervenor. Clark J. Hulce, Esq., and Carl Korman, Esq., Corps of Engineers, for the agency. C. Douglas McArthur, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Where record shows that evaluation of protester's proposal was reasonable and consistent with the criteria established by the solicitation, the protester's mere disagreement with the evaluation provides no basis for sustaining a protest. 2. Where evaluation standards, used in evaluation of proposals for environmental restoration contract, listed criteria for assigning the appropriate adjectival rating under each evaluation subfactor and subsubfactor, rating of the awardee's proposal as "excellent" under five subsubfactors was not unreasonable simply because proposal failed to meet one listed criterion for an "excellent" rating, where there is no allegation or evidence that the proposal did not meet the remaining criteria for an "excellent" rating. 3. Where protester waited a month after receipt of agency report to provide detailed basis for protest of its own evaluation, the protest is untimely despite an earlier protest that broadly challenged the evaluation as inconsistent with the protester's superior experience in similar contracts; such detailed grounds constitute new and independent allegations which must independently satisfy timeliness requirements. 4. Protest that agency improperly failed to conduct a price/technical tradeoff is denied where, in selecting a higher-rated offeror, selection officials reasonably determined that offerors were essentially equal in price. DECISION OHM Remediation Services Corporation protests the award of a contract to ICF Kaiser Engineers, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. DACW05-96-R-0011, issued by the Corps of Engineers for environmental remediation services. OHM contends that the evaluations of its proposal and that of ICF Kaiser were unreasonable and inconsistent with the RFP and that the selection decision therefore was flawed. We deny the protests. BACKGROUND On May 20, 1996, the agency issued the RFP for an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for a 4-year base period with two 3-year option periods to remedy hazardous toxic radioactive waste (HTRW) sites within the geographic boundaries of the South Pacific Division of the Corps of Engineers. The sites include some currently owned or controlled by the government, some formerly used sites where an agency of the government is identified as a generator or potentially responsible party, and some where the Corps is authorized to respond. The contract is one of a contemplated series of total environmental restoration contracts (TERC); the instant effort is known as TERC II. The contracts represent an effort to provide continuity of personnel and institutional knowledge through the use of a single contractor for all phases of HTRW remediation projects. Under the TERCs, the Corps issues task orders covering most aspects of the investigation and definition of HTRW sites, as well as the development of plans and operations for site remediation. The RFP requires the successful offeror to ensure coordination and compliance with a variety of local, state, and federal agencies. It requires employment of a wide spectrum of specialists, including geologists, hygienists, physicians, regulatory experts, and specialists in public relations. The effort therefore includes performance of a wide variety of as-yet undefined tasks involving a multitude of specialties, over a wide geographical area. The solicitation here advised offerors that the Corps would select a contractor through formal source selection procedures, using a source selection organization consisting of a source selection evaluation board (SSEB), with separate technical and cost evaluation teams, a source selection advisory council (SSAC), and a source selection authority (SSA). The RFP provided that the SSEB would perform the initial evaluation and forward the results to the SSAC.