PON 3179 Digital Aerial Baseline Survey of Marine Wildlife in Support of New York State Offshore Wind Energy
Offshore Wind Energy
Program Opportunity Notice/Request for Proposal (PON) 3179
3,500,000 USD Available
Propsals Due: February 9, 2016 by 5pm Eastern Time (UTM-5)
There is growing interest in developing offshore wind (OSW) energy in New York and elsewhere. However, it is still unclear what impacts such development could have on wildlife, including corals and other invertebrates, birds, bats, sea turtles, fish, and marine mammals. Data gaps and unmet research needs hamper the efforts of federal and state regulators to avoid or minimize potential impacts to wildlife from OSW development. There have been several efforts in New York and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast to identify and fill these gaps in recent years, but many research needs are still unmet.
One of the most pressing research needs is baseline data on potential wildlife exposure. Knowledge about species presence and absence in development areas helps regulators form appropriate site specific questions to be addressed by developers. Regional-scale baseline information on wildlife distributions, abundance, and movements by season can inform the relative biodiversity of the development sites. These types of surveys can also provide a better understanding of the potential effects of individual projects, as well as any potential cumulative effects of multiple projects.
This solicitation seeks proposals to collect spatial data using high-definition digital aerial surveys of wildlife (birds, marine mammals, sea turtles, and others) in the New York Planning Area. For the purposes of this project the New York Bight is defined as the area of the ocean from the south shore of Long Island to the continental shelf break, matching the New York Department of State’s “Offshore Planning Area”. The approximate size of this area is 12,650 square nautical miles and includes state and federal waters. Four seasonal surveys per year are requested to capture the seasonal variations in wildlife distributions, and three consecutive years of data to capture inter-annual variability. Images must be identified to the lowest possible taxonomic group and geo-referenced. The objectives are to determine the distribution and estimate relative abundance of wildlife, and to determine the seasonal and inter-annual variability of the distribution. Digital and observer approaches, when coordinated, provide a clearer understanding of what species are present in the study area, their relative density, and what they are doing at the time of observation. Given these parameters, the work must be coordinated with the planned New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) aerial and shipboard visual surveys of whales and sea turtles.
Proposal Submission: Electronic submission is preferable. NYSERDA will also accept proposals by mail or hand-delivery. If submitting electronically, proposers must submit the proposal in either PDF or MS Word format with a completed and signed Proposal Checklist and Disclosure of Prior Findings of Non-Responsibility, in PDF format. Proposal PDFs should be searchable and should be created by direct conversion from MS Word, or other conversion utility, rather than scanning. For ease of identification, all electronic files must be named using the proposer’s entity name in the title of the document. Proposals may be submitted electronically by following the link for electronic submissions found on this PON’s webpage, which is located in the “Current Opportunities” section of NYSERDA’s website (www.nyserda.ny.gov/Funding-Opportunities/Current-Funding-Opportunities). Instructions for submitting electronically are located as Attachment G to this PON.
If mailing or hand-delivering, proposers must submit (2) paper copies of their proposal with a completed and signed Proposal Checklist, along with a CD or DVD containing both a PDF and MS Word digital copy of the proposal, following the above guidelines. Mailed or hand-delivered proposals must be clearly labeled and submitted to:
Roseanne Viscusi, PON 3179
NYS Energy Research and Development Authority
17 Columbia Circle
Albany, NY 12203-6399
If you have technical questions concerning this solicitation, contact Gregory Lampman at (518) 862-1090, ext. 3372 or gregory.lampman@nyserda.ny.gov. If you have contractual questions concerning this solicitation, contact Elsyda Ahmed at (518) 862-1090, ext. 3232 or elsyda.ahmed@nyserda.ny.gov.
No communication intended to influence this procurement is permitted except by contacting Gregory Lampman (Designated Contact) at (518) 862-1090, ext. 3372 or gregory.lampman@nyserda.ny.gov. Contacting anyone other than this Designated Contact (either directly by the proposer or indirectly through a lobbyist or other person acting on the proposer’s behalf) in an attempt to influence the procurement: (1) may result in a proposer being deemed a non-responsible offerer, and (2) may result in the proposer not being awarded a contract.
* Late proposals will be returned. Incomplete proposals may be subject to disqualification. It is the proposer’s responsibility to ensure that all pages have been included in the proposal. Faxed or e-mailed proposals will not be accepted. Proposals will not be accepted at any other NYSERDA location other than the address above. If changes are made to this solicitation, notification will be posted on NYSERDA’s web site at www.nyserda.ny.gov.