Environmental Consulting Services

CITY OF COMMERCE CITY

Commerce City, CO

*For full RFP, please visit https://www.c3gov.com/Home/Components/RFP/RFP/2217/26*

General Overview

The city is soliciting proposals from qualified vendors to conduct three primary functions. This scope of services will be in addition to the City’s Comprehensive Plan Update, which is currently underway, and significant coordination is desired between both of these processes. It is acknowledged that one individual firm may not have the ability to provide all services requested in this scope, therefore joint submittals are encouraged between more than one vendor. It may be necessary for firms to subcontract certain aspects and functions of this request.

Environmental Policy Development

The city is seeking a qualified vendor to produce an overall set of policy recommendations and strategies as it pertains to improving community health outcomes, environmental impacts, and overall community resiliency. Additionally, the city is seeking assistance in developing a vision of organizational sustainability across all city functions and departments (including Public Works, Parks Recreation and Golf, and Community Development) as well as a detailed implementation plan to achieve those objectives. This work would aim to serve as the foundational set of policy recommendations, which would inform the development of future specific sub-plans. Applicants should have significant expertise and experience working in the realms of municipal sustainability or local, state, or federal environmental policy, experience developing municipal sustainability plans, hazard mitigation plans, or climate action plans, knowledge of green building systems and certification experience, benchmarking, retro-commissioning, performance monitoring, or life cycle assessment analysis (LCA). Applicants should also have significant experience with community outreach as it relates to these topics. The overall set of policy recommendations should contain information relating to the following topics:

• Community-wide waste reduction strategies
• Community-wide water use reduction strategies
• Community-wide energy efficiency and energy reduction strategies, as it pertains to the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors
• Energy efficiency, waste reduction, and water use strategies, as it pertains to municipal facilities and operations, buildings, infrastructure, equipment, and vehicle fleets
• Incentive strategies for green building development, adaptive reuse or net zero buildings
• Policy recommendations and strategies to adopt environmental review of land use impacts of public and private development
• Process recommendations as it pertains to an overall environmental review framework for land development activities occurring within the city
• Hazard mitigation strategies and techniques
• Brownfield Management, identification, assessment, and revitalization strategies
• Incentive strategies for renewable energy development
• Geology and soil management strategies

Air Quality Monitoring and Policy Recommendation Services

The city is seeking a qualified vendor to provide air quality monitoring services, technical expertise, and policy recommendations as it pertains to local air quality regulations. Experience working with Oil and Gas development is highly preferred. The City of Commerce City has written Best Management Practices (BMPs) related to oil and gas operations, including ambient air quality sampling, monitoring, and reporting requirements. Specifically, regarding air quality control, the BMPs ensure compliance to eliminate, capture, or minimize all potentially harmful emissions by requiring operators to develop and implement Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) and Ambient Air Sampling programs. These programs require baseline air quality testing as well as ongoing air quality monitoring. It is critically important that the design of operators’ ambient air sampling studies be thoroughly scrutinized so they produce useful, informative data and meaningful, easy-to-understand reporting. Additionally, each Plan must be reviewed for site-specificity, relevance, the use of current and best technologies, and adherence to the BMPs.

The city is also looking to conduct an assessment of air pollution risks that may exist within its municipal boundaries, and potentially deploy community-wide air quality monitoring to better understand emission sources, adaption and mitigation strategies to improve air quality outcomes, and provide clear, concise, and transparent monitoring data to the public. In response, the city is looking for applicants who have experience developing municipal air quality regulations, administering municipal air quality monitoring or policy programs, and associated community education programs to advise on a set of policy recommendations for the city.  The final set of policy recommendations and deliverables should include the following items, at a minimum:

• An inventory of community-wide and area specific air quality impacts of concern
• Development of a community-wide air monitoring plan based on the conducted inventory, that establishes a recommended number of monitoring stations and locations, recommended technologies to deploy to achieve monitoring goals, and implementation costs
• An inventory of existing GHG emissions produced within the community, a recommended set of reduction targets and timeframes, and strategies to reduce or mitigate such emissions
• Air quality guidelines that would include strategies to reduce Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP’s), Particulate and Fine Particulate Matter (PM), Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG’s), odors, and other substances of significant health concerns
• Thresholds of significance, and screening at the project and plan level
• Air quality modeling guidelines

As it pertains to air quality monitoring activities, the city expects the vendor to conduct, or arrange for subcontracting services to conduct monitoring in order to support the policy recommendations listed above.

Water Quality Policy Recommendation and Monitoring Services

The city is seeking a qualified vendor to provide water quality monitoring services, technical expertise, and policy recommendations as it pertains to water quality and watershed improvement strategies at the sub-watershed level (HUC 8-12). The primary areas of focus of any necessary monitoring efforts and policy recommendations will be in the industrialized southern areas of Commerce City, particularly along Sand Creek and the South Platte River, as well as new growth and development areas in the city’s Northern Range. Desired services include the following:

• Development of Low Impact Development (LID) Stormwater infrastructure guidelines and Best Management Practices
• Land use policy recommendations and strategies as it pertains to furthering local water quality and wildlife habitats, including a review and assessment of the city’s Land Development Code
• Identification of both significant point source and non-point source pollution causes, an assessment of groundwater quality in the southern industrialized area of Commerce City,  and a series of policy recommendations and potential remediation strategies for the city to implement
• Long term water quality management strategies and recommendations for the first, second, and third creek corridors
• Identification of potential future capital investments, green infrastructure projects, or other efforts the city could take in to improve water quality
• Development of a water quality monitoring plan that determines the targeted location(s) and frequency of monitoring activities, in conjunction with the outcomes described above

As it pertains to water quality monitoring activities, the city expects the vendor to conduct, or arrange for subcontracting services to conduct monitoring in conjunction with, and supporting the policy recommendations listed above. Such monitoring should be able to accomplish the following:

• Water quality sampling and monitoring at set frequencies and locations
• Coordination of laboratory analysis of samples at a certified analytical laboratory
• Coordination of waste and wastewater disposal from sampling
• Data analysis, report writing capabilities, and report preparation

Deliverables

The vendor shall provide the following work product to the city:

1. Monthly invoices to the city including monthly progress reports
2. Provide draft worksheets and memos to the city for review and comment
3. Final work product to be delivered to the city, which includes the following:
   1. Final set of policy recommendations to be provided to the city – based on audit of existing city established policy, plans and procedures, and best practices occurring in other jurisdictions in the Denver Metro Area, Colorado, and nationwide
   2. Overview and assessment of existing local government air quality regulations
   3. Identification of area specific air quality pollutants of concern throughout the city
   4. Development of a detailed cost estimates for implementation of proposed policy recommendations, with both return on investment analysis (ROI) and triple bottom line analysis, in any instance where a specific policy recommendation is made by the vendor pertaining to Air Quality Improvements, Water Quality Improvements, Overall Environmental Policy Development, and Municipal Efficiency Improvements / Operations Analysis
4. Additionally, for all items contained within the scope, the vendor shall provide a detailed community outreach and public engagement plan that is inclusive of all languages, ethnicities, abilities, and technologies. The plan shall include, but is not limited to the following:
   1. A detailed description of how the vendor plans to engage members of the public, community organizations, non-profits, and special districts, in formulating the final set of policy recommendations and implementation strategies
   2. A plan for hosting stakeholder working groups, advisory committees, community meetings, or workshops (in-person or virtual, depending on the circumstances)
   3. A detailed process for prioritizing insights collected from individuals who identify as belonging to underrepresented or marginalized communities
   4. Recommendations for a community education campaign, derived from the final set of policy recommendations that are determined

As it relates to air quality monitoring services, the following deliverables are expected:

1. Reasonable and sufficient evidence to demonstrate capability of conducting baseline sampling at oil and gas well sites, compliant with city adopted BMP’s and other applicable regulations.
2. Reasonable and sufficient evidence to demonstrate capability of air quality monitoring, for any  or all of the following:
   1. Methane, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s), Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAP’s), Oxides of Nitrogen (Nox), Particulate Matter (PM), Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5)
3. Establishment of Oil and Gas Air Quality Plan submittal standards, based on existing Operator Agreement requirements, including:
   1. A table of targeted compounds.
   2. Defined regulatory thresholds for criteria pollutants and VOCs for acceptable monitoring criteria.
   3. Accepted methods of sampling site location and technology deployment, such as wind direction prevalence, comparative location of site operations, proximity to residential uses, proximity to off-site fueling stations, and potential nearby mobile source activity. Inclusion of both upwind and downwind sampling sites.
   4. Desired frequency and duration of monitoring during all phases, accounting for seasonal and operational conditions such as wind speed, wind direction, and temperature as well as distinguishing from local pad impacts.
   5. Definition and requirements of continuous versus period monitoring and the duration of sampling events.
   6. Intended quality assurance and quality control procedures for the equipment and data collection that are recognized by the EPA as standard (including data checks or validation, and maintenance). Air pollution data should be used to evaluate the adequacy of any air pollution control devices and emission reduction measures.
   7. Identify potential public health concerns, including long and short-term health effects, by contaminant and by proximity to oil and gas development, if known. Air pollutant data should be tied to health-based criteria for exposure limits and exceedances of National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) or Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) acute or chronic exposure levels.
4. A community-wide air monitoring plan that includes a recommended number of monitoring stations and locations, and recommended technologies to deploy to achieve monitoring goals defined within the plan
5. Demonstration of data reporting capabilities
6. Cost estimates to deliver such services

As it relates to water quality monitoring services, the following deliverables are expected:

1. Reasonable and sufficient evidence to demonstrate capability of conducting baseline sampling at recommended locations
2. A preliminary report detailing targeted areas for water quality monitoring efforts based on an assessment of point source and nonpoint source pollution sources, in the form of a water quality monitoring plan
3. A final report with detailed analysis of monitoring data, and list of policy recommendations and implementation strategies for the city

The solicitation and selection process includes the following steps and schedule:

Publication and distribution of RFP: Friday, October 02, 2020

Question submission deadline: Friday, October 16, 2020 (5:00 p.m. MT)

Responses to questions posted (anticipated): Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Proposal submission deadline: Friday, October 30, 2020, (5:00 p.m. MT)

Review period (anticipated): 1-2 weeks

Interviews (if any) (anticipated): Week of November 16, 2020

City Council interviews (anticipated): Monday, November 23 at 6:00PM MT

Selection (anticipated): Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Respondent submits insurance and other required documentation: Within ten (10) calendar days of Notice of Intent to Award

Execute contract (anticipated): Friday, December 04, 2020

The City reserves the right to modify this schedule as needed. Date for responses to questions and dates after the submission deadline are anticipated dates; modifications of those will not be posted.