DRC Emergency Services touted its experience with Boulder County in its ultimately successful bid to win a $60 million contract for the Marshall fire cleanup. The company has held a contract with the county since 2017 for debris removal work and was on site immediately after the fire’s aftermath to help, the company stated in early February.
Later in the month, a DRC official told an interviewer during the selection process: “You know us, we’re a good fit, you know what you're going to get. We have the capacity to do this and look forward to having the opportunity.”
“ …Know that this task at hand is not too big for them,” the DRC official said about the DRC team vying for the cleanup contract . “They can do it all. They have the experience and they know what it takes.”
The Boulder County Commissioners awarded the cleanup bid to DRC on Feb. 10 after an evaluation team from the county, the city of Louisville, and the town of Superior recommended DRC as the bidder that would provide the best value among 11 companies who bid on the Marshall fire cleanup.
The county said last week there is no reason to terminate its contract with DRC even after another company — Florida-based Ceres Environmental Services, Inc. — filed a lawsuit in Boulder County District Court asking a judge to invalidate the contract.
Ceres claims in its lawsuit that the bidding process involved secret negotiations with DRC, unstated and nonpublic requirements that were shared with DRC but not the other bidders, improper modifications of DRC’s proposal to skew its proposed timeline and inflation of DRC’s scoring.
“...The procurement process harmed not only competing bidders, like Ceres, but also Colorado taxpayers by jeopardizing critical FEMA reimbursement for significant portions of the cleanup costs, as well as the quality and timing of the cleanup efforts,” the lawsuit states.
Boulder County, in a news release last week, stated the claims made by Ceres were without merit.
“It’s heartbreaking that a large disaster management firm with no ties to Colorado is attempting to hold up our ability to make progress in Marshall Fire recovery efforts. We’ve learned throughout this process that in the highly competitive environment of private disaster management firms, like Ceres, are focused more on money than on the families affected by disasters.”
A bid from Ceres was ranked third by the county’s evaluation committee. The company was not one of the two selected to be interviewed by the committee because of the large scoring gap between the Ceres proposal and the two firms selected to interview, the news release states.
Out of a total possible score of 100, Ceres received a score of 68, as compared to the two other firms receiving scores of 84 and 91, the news release states. The firms were evaluated on project cost (50/100 points), timeline for project schedule (20/100 points), past experience with similar projects (20/100 points) and referenced from similar projects (10/100 points), according to Boulder County.
At the time the evaluation committee scored the bidders, Ceres estimated it could do Marshall fire cleanup within five months for $77 million, said Boulder County spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill via email. Evaluators, at one point, said of Ceres: “Price is out of range for this project.”
Evaluators also had problems with Ceres during the bidding process, stating that the company’s bid calculations were incorrect and unclear and that the company was high on its per parcel cost. “After careful consideration and deliberation, the review committee unanimously voted to eliminate Ceres,” according to evaluator notes provided by the county.
DRC said it could complete the cleanup in four months for a total project cost of $53 million. After the bidders were scored, FEMA determined that the removal of foundations could be included in the cleanup work, and the inclusion of foundations is reflected in the final contract amount of DRC to not exceed $60.1 million, Churchill said.
The company also had extensive experience in wildfire cleanup in California and Washington over the past four years, according to the county evaluation. DRC also received points for experience working with Boulder County.
DRC’s contract with the county is for county-wide debris hauling, collection, and removal services. DRC officials reminded the county of its local history in the February letter announcing the company’s proposal for the Marshall fire cleanup.
DRC, although located in Texas, has a sister company called Forgen in Centennial. The company immediately responded to the Marshall ire to help Louisville and Superior by providing potable water and remained on the ground to help in debris removal, the letter states.
“DRC has completed over $1 billion in contracts over the past five years alone and is well equipped financially and operationally to execute a project of this size and complexity,” DRC vice president, secretary and treasurer Kristy Fuentes said in the letter. “Our project leadership team will be the same DRC personnel that have been working alongside Boulder County since the initial fire response.”
CLARIFICATION: This story includes clarification of the final cost estimates from both DRC Emergency Services and Ceres for the Marshall Fire cleanup.
