USS Monitor Artifact Conservation

Solicitation description

SOLICITATION 1305M226Q0135 The Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Eastern Acquisition Division, on behalf of the National Ocean Service (NOS), Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), Monitor National Marine Sanctuary (MNMS), has a requirement for professional conservation services for the ongoing active and preventative conservation care of the USS Monitor Collection. The Government intends to award a Firm-Fixed-Price contract to The Mariners' Museum and Park (TMMP) utilizing the policies and procedures in the Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation Overhaul (RFO) 12.202-1. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is RFO 6.302-1. The Notice of Intent to award a Sole Source procurement was posted on April 27, 2026, under Notice ID REQUIREMENTS-26-1909. The MNMS possesses over 210 tons of archaeological materials from the wreck site of the Civil War Ironclad USS Monitor, which was lost at sea in 1862 following the largest metal shipwreck excavation and recovery effort ever undertaken. Artifacts (the “Collection”) were recovered from the seabed over the course of several years of research. This federally owned collection (NOAA Heritage Assets) contains over 5,000 individual artifacts made of a wide variety of materials—primarily iron and ferrous materials, but also including wood, leather, textiles, rubber, and various other organic and inorganic artifacts. This requires an intensely diverse and complex approach to materials conservation to ensure each different type and size of material is appropriately treated to ensure long-term stability for research, interpretation, and display. The USS Monitor artifacts now reside at The Mariners’ Museum and Park (TMMP) within the U.S.S. Monitor Center and the Batten Conservation Complex in Newport News, VA, where they are on long-term deposit undergoing active conservation treatment. The primary place of performance for this requirement will be at TMMP in Newport News, VA. These objects range in size from small buttons and fragments of textiles to nearly the entirety of the vessel's engineering section, including the 25-ton propulsion engines. In addition, TMMP holds Monitor’s iconic 115-ton rotating gun turret, as well as the two 8-ton Dahlgren shell guns and their carriages that were found within it. All of the objects require stabilization treatment due to nearly 140 years of marine burial. Treatment times and stabilization will vary for artifacts based on size and complexity, ranging from weeks to months to years. Many of the larger object assemblies are composed of hundreds to thousands of component parts that will ultimately need to be disassembled and receive individual treatment with the goal of reassembly post-treatment. Following treatment, objects will require ongoing preventive care and monitoring to ensure the physical stability of the archaeological assemblage for the future within both storage and...

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