The City of Yakima (City) Wastewater Treatment Plant Laboratory (lab) performs over one thousand trace metal determinations per year on wastewater, stormwater, groundwater, and biosolids samples as required under the City’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) and General Biosolids permits. Lab staff have identified the requirement to replace the existing trace metals analysis instrumentation, as the existing instruments are fifteen years old and require frequent and intensive maintenance to maintain the required Department of Ecology-certified performance. The instrument selected to replace the aging equipment greatly increases lab efficiency by allowing the simultaneous measurement of all target metals in a sample during a single analysis. This is in contrast to the existing instrument that requires reconfiguration and a separate analysis for each target metal. A Proposal from laboratory staff that details the need for the new instrument is attached.
As described in the attached Sole Source Justification form, the Wastewater laboratory staff identified Agilent Technologies, Inc. as the sole vendor of the instrument that meets the needs of the laboratory. The City followed the requirements of RCW 39.04.280, City Charter and Municipal Code for sole source purchases over $50,000, including the publication of a ‘Notice of Intent to Sole Source’ for four days (September 19, 2020 through September 23, 2019) and notification of other vendors. No other vendors came forth to compete for the instrument. The sole source purchase, including five years of maintenance support, is in an amount not to exceed $111,252.64 (see attached Sole Source Justification and Quote). The instrument purchase is funded through Wastewater Capital Fund 472. |