National Science Foundation



National Science Foundation

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COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT (CA)

AWARD: PHY- 0919278

EFFECTIVE DATE: 10/01/2009

EXPIRATION DATE: 9/30/2012

Cooperative Support Agreement(s): N/A

SOLICITATION: [ system will enter it ]

(Incorporated by reference, as amended)

CFDA NUMBER: [ system will enter it ]

OTHER AWARDS UNDER THIS PROGRAM: [ system will enter ]

AWARDEE: Regents of the University of Minnesota

PROJECT TITLE: Assay and Acquisition of Radiopure Materials

PROJECT ABSTRACT: [ system will enter ]

Principal Investigator(s) Proposal No. Institution (s)

Priscilla Cushman University of Minnesota

Kara J Keeter Black Hills State University

Richard W Schnee Syracuse University

Dongming Mei University of South Dakota

NSF Contact Information:

Financial/Administrative questions: e-mail your NSF Grants and Agreements Official, Kristin Spencer, at kspencer@ or call the Division at 703-292-8240.

Programmatic questions: e-mail your NSF Program Officer, Jonathan Kotcher, email to: jkotcher@ or call the Directorate at 703-292-8890.

This CA is entered into between the United States of America, represented by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the above named Awardee pursuant to the authority of the National Science Foundation Act of 1950, as amended (42 USC 1861-1875). This CA is provided electronically to the Awardee. The Awardee is responsible for full compliance with all Financial/Administrative and Programmatic Terms and Conditions as initially stated or as updated over the life of this CA. The Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) will be electronically notified of any changes to these Terms and Conditions and is encouraged to immediately review these changes and contact the Grants and Agreements Official or Program Officer within thirty days with any questions.

Financial/Administrative Terms and Conditions (FATC):

General FATC:

This Cooperative Agreement incorporates the following terms and conditions:

Cooperative Agreement Financial & Administrative Terms and Conditions (CAFATC), June 1, 2007



Award Specific FATC

Part 1. Award Specific FATC

1.1. Award Interpretation

a. Deviations from the FATC. To meet the specific needs and requirements of this CA, necessary deviations are provided in full text below. All modifications to the FATC that are made subsequent to award shall be incorporated by amendment to this CA following discussion by the parties.

b. Order of Precedence. The Award-Specific FATC and Award Specific-PTC take precedence over the CA-FATC.

c. Cognizant Agreements Officer. The NSF Grants and Agreements Official responsible for award and administration of this CA may be either a Grants and Agreements Officer or a Contracting Officer. For purposes of this award, this official is referred to throughout as the Contracting/Agreements Officer.

1.2. Funding and Funding Schedule

a. Funding. The activities supported under this CA will be for a period of 36 months. Funding for the second and third project years will be contingent on the availability of funds, progress in developing the technical design, satisfactory coordination with the DUSEL facility design team, and the overall conduct of this award, the total amount of funding will be $ 1,000,000.

b. Subject to the contingencies described in 1.2.a., NSF intends to provide funding as follows:

FY 2010: $ 286,799. for Project Year 1, beginning October 1, 2009

FY 2011: $ 388,965. for Project Year 2, beginning October 1, 2010

FY 2012: $ 324,236. for Project Year 3, beginning October 1, 2011

3. Term of Agreement.

The term of this agreement ends on September 30, 2012, unless otherwise amended.

1.4. Prior Approval Requirements.

Under FATC Article 3, "Prior Approval Requirements," section a.1., ‘Significant Project Changes’ requiring written prior approval from the NSF Contracting/Agreements Officer, add the following:

(e) the reallocation of $150,000 in direct costs, or more, of approved budget funds.

1.5 Modification to CA-FATC Article 10, Travel

Add the following under subparagraph d., Use of Foreign-Flag Air Carriers:

4. Airline "Open Skies" Agreements: A foreign flag air carrier may be used if the transportation is provided under an air transportation agreement between the United States and a foreign government, which the Department of Transportation has determined meets the requirements of the Fly America Act. For example, in 2008, the U.S. entered into an "Open Skies" Agreement with the European Union. This Agreement gives European Community airlines (airlines of Member States) the right to transport passengers and cargo on flights funded by the U.S. government, when the transportation is between a point in the United States and any point in a Member State or between any two points outside the United States. In accordance with the Agreement, however, a U.S.-flag air carrier must be used if: (a) transportation is between points for which there is a city-pair contract fare in effect for air passenger transportation services; or (b) transportation is obtained or funded by the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of a Military Department. The conditions for use of a Member State airline apply to non-Federal employees as well (e.g., grantees). So, even though grantees are ineligible for city-pair contract fares, they must still use a U.S.-flag air carrier if a city-pair

contract fare exists. For information on other "open skies" agreements in which the United States has entered, please refer to GSA's website:

&noc=T.

1.6. Subaward Requirements. The parties agree that, in order for NSF to exercise its responsibility for oversight and monitoring of this award, support for which represents a sizeable investment for the Government, the procedures set forth below shall be followed to ensure that materials and services are obtained in an effective manner and in compliance with the provisions of applicable Federal statutes and executive orders.

a. Definition. As used in this agreement, the term “subaward” includes subcontracts, cooperative agreements, purchase orders, orders issued under blanket purchase agreements or similar devices, awards made to sub-recipients regardless of form, and modifications to all the aforementioned to be issued by the Awardee under this agreement.

b. Approval Requirement Threshold. The Awardee shall obtain the written approval of the Contracting/Agreements Officer prior to placing any new subaward that was not included in the approved budget for services and equipment exceeding $150,000 in direct costs. The Awardee shall not artificially segregate its procurements to lesser dollar amounts for the purpose of circumventing this requirement.

c. Request for Subaward Approval

1) The Awardee will submit electronically to NSF a request for prior approval at least 30 calendar days in advance of the anticipated start date of the subaward, unless otherwise determined by the NSF Contracting/Agreements Officer. Incomplete or insufficient requests will be returned without approval, for proper completion by the Awardee. Upon receipt of a complete and sufficient request, NSF will review and provide a determination within 30 calendar days. All requests shall be submitted electronically via FastLane for review by the Program Officer and the Contracting/Agreements Officer. The documentation shall include the proposed subaward document and a memorandum of selection which sets forth the principal elements of the purpose, selection procedures and price/cost justification, including items, as appropriate, below:

• A description of the supplies or services required.

• Identification of the type of subaward to be issued.

• Identification of the proposed subawardee, an explanation of why and how the proposed subawardee was selected, and the degree of competition obtained.

• The proposed subaward price, together with the Awardee’s cost or price analysis thereof.

2) The memorandum of selection shall be in sufficient detail to reflect the most significant considerations controlling the establishment of initial or revised prices. The memorandum shall include the basis of award, and cost or price analysis in accordance with 2 CFR 215.45. The memorandum shall include a determination of price reasonableness, whether based on adequate price competition, established catalog or market prices of commercial items sold in substantial quantities to the general public, prices set by law or regulation, or some other method. Where the total price differs significantly from the Awardee’s total price objective, the memorandum shall explain this difference.

3) Where the award will be made without competition, the memorandum shall include a detailed justification.

4) Upon satisfactory review, the NSF Contracting/Agreements Officer will provide written approval to the Awardee. Approval of the Contracting/Agreements Officer shall not be construed to constitute a determination of the allowability of any cost under this agreement, unless such approval specifically provides that it constitutes a determination of the allowability of such cost.

d. Award and Administration

1) The Awardee shall make all consultant agreements, subawards, or other commitments in its own name and shall not bind or purport to bind the Government or NSF; and hereby agrees to administer/monitor all subawards it enters into and supports with NSF funds in accordance with the applicable federal cost principles and the applicable federal administrative requirements; remains responsible for maintaining the necessary documentation on all subawards and making it available to NSF upon request; and shall include major subaward activities that constitute a significant part of the program or project effort in the annual and final progress and final project reports that are submitted to NSF.

2) Incorporation of Applicable Terms and Conditions. All contractual arrangements shall contain appropriate provisions consistent with the applicable FATC and any applicable special conditions included in this Agreement.

e. Prompt Notification of Claims. The Awardee shall give the Contracting/Agreements Officer immediate notice in writing of any legal action or suit filed, and prompt notice of any claim made against the Awardee by any subawardee or vendor which in the opinion of the Awardee may result in litigation, related in any way to this agreement, with respect to which the Awardee may be entitled to reimbursement from the Government.

Programmatic Terms and Conditions (PTC):

General PTC:

N/A

Award Specific PTC:

Part 2. Award Specific PTC

2.1. Project Description. This Award advances the technical design of a Water-shielded Low Background Counting Facility that might be a candidate for installation at a later stage in the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) in Lead, South Dakota.

a. Project Mission. The mission of this project is to provide low background infrastructure and radioassay techniques of varying sensitivity which can be used in common by the various DUSEL experiments to build and operate experiments requiring extreme radiopurity. The design of the common facility will include all relevant infrastructure, including the screeners themselves situated in a water-shielded room with a central immersion tank for the highest sensitivity requirements.

b. Project Goals. Within the limits of available funding, the goal of this project is to develop the basic or initial elements of a preliminary design, as defined in the NSF Large Facility Manual, for an experiment that could be implemented at DUSEL. The design will be integrated with the DUSEL Facility Design currently under development by the DUSEL Project Team at U.C. Berkeley. If required for design development, specific research and development (R&D) will be conducted to mitigate high-risk technical elements of the project, and to provide a realistic schedule for risk retirement.

In order to develop the design, this project will gather information on required sensitivities from the other experiments and will characterize the current gamma and neutron background in the Homestake Mine at all accessible levels, using a blend of new measurements and older data.

Based on this information, neutron and gamma simulations will be used to determine the parameters of the outer shield, the inner immersion tank, and the number, modality, and additional shielding required for a bank of common-use screening stations to be located inside the shielded room.

This project will determine whether there is other low background infrastructure which would benefit from being in common and then implement this in the preliminary design of the Facility for Assay and Acquisition of Radiopure Materials (FAARM). Examples of these extensions are room-wide radon mitigation, underground storage of solid materials, clean machine shop, or cryogen and water purification plants.

c. Experiment Design Requirements.

1) The project will develop the basic or initial elements of a Preliminary Design, as defined in the NSF Large Facilities Manual.

2) Targeted R&D that is critical for mitigation of high-risk elements in the design shall be formulated, documented, and, as required and feasible, implemented as part of the design process.

3) The assembly, installation, operation, and decommissioning plans for the experiment shall be sufficiently developed to ensure the requirements for transport, space, access, ES&H, power, water supply, ventilation, etc are well defined.

4) The experiment design requirements shall be developed in collaboration with the University of California-Berkeley DUSEL Project Team, which has overall responsibility for development of a single, integrated DUSEL MREFC proposal. Coordination with the DUSEL Project Team shall include, but not be limited to, specifications of the infrastructure required to assemble, install, operate, maintain and decommission the experiment. The Awardee will work to ensure effective and constructive communications with the DUSEL Project Team and other Experiment Design Awardees as needed.

d. Project Objectives

1. Determine science requirements for the FAARM, with broad participation from all DUSEL experiments. This facility will include a water-shielded room with alpha, beta, and gamma screeners, an ultra-sensitive immersion tank, and underground materials storage and purification infrastructure.   

2. Characterize the backgrounds at all accessible Homestake levels by making measurements of gamma, beta, and neutron fluxes and energy spectra, and by cross correlating them with measurements by researchers using the same devices as have been used for underground sites in Europe.

3. Develop and run extensive GEANT4-based simulations of cosmogenic neutrons and gammas at various levels of Homestake to determine the nature, size and instrumentation of the central immersion tank and the outer water shield which will line the FAARM itself.

4. Develop shielding, load-lock systems and detailed placement of the alpha, beta, and gamma screeners within the FAARM, including simulations of shielding configurations as needed for the sensitivities required for each screener.

5. Integrate the FAARM with the overall DUSEL plan, including developing design and construction schedules.

6. Develop a Cost Estimate and Schedule which, along with items 1-5, will result in a Conceptual Design report for the FAARM.

2.2. Project Governance

The PI will manage overall project coordination with financial, administrative, project management and web assistance from University of Minnesota administration and support from the School of Physics and Astronomy. The Physics Department has experience in the management of underground science projects, having managed the Soudan Underground Lab for several decades, in collaboration with Fermilab, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the University of Minnesota Administration.

The conventional design of the facility will be performed by a consortium of engineers (CNA Consulting Engineers, Dunham Associates, and Miller Dunwiddie Architecture, Inc.), under subawards/subcontract from the University of Minnesota. Lee Petersen (CNA) will coordinate the effort, along with Greg Hulne (DA) and Dale Holland (MDA Inc.). This consortium will develop the critical requirements, construction schedule, cost, and conceptual design report, for the approval of the PI.

The three co-PI’s of AARM will work on experimental results and simulation work focusing on key ingredients of the FAARM. Black Hills State University will study parameters related to the immersion tank, such as optical properties characterization and optimization, and H2O or liquid scintillator purity. Syracuse University will coordinate the efforts to determine the number and sensitivity of the screeners located inside the FAARM, with an emphasis on the additional individual screening required, and will interact with engineers designing load-lock mechanisms for low-radon handling of samples. The University of South Dakota will work closely the University of Minnesota to optimize the external water shield thickness, radiopurity of structural members, and degree of water purity required. The South Dakota and Minnesota cosmogenic neutron simulations will be coordinated with benchmarking studies already begun at Homestake and Soudan, using new data coming from the neutron detectors installed in both locations, in order to determine which technology will work best for a set of neutron monitoring stations installed at different levels in Homestake.

The AARM scientific collaboration is broader than the four co-PIs and consists of representatives from all expected ISE whose input will help create the scientific plan for the FAARM. The collaboration will meet annually at the DUSEL site for planning purposes, and will conduct frequent consultation via regular wiki-assisted teleconferences. In addition, an International Scientific Advisory Panel, comprised of experts in low background screening, radioisotopes, water shield design and backgrounds simulation will participate in workshops and contribute to the design.

2.3 Responsibilities of the Awardee

a. Overall Management. The Awardee is responsible for the overall management and fiscal responsibility of the project. Unless NSF reserves specific responsibility by special or general condition for coordinating or integrating the project with other activities or sharing responsibility for certain aspects of the project, all such responsibilities remain with the Awardee.

b. Coordination. The Awardee is responsible for the management of and coordination of the award, subawards, contracts, and the successful conduct of this CA. The Awardee will ensure that an efficient and effective project governing structure is in place throughout the award period to support all critical and significant project activities.

c. Point of Contact. The PI will serve as the point of contact for the NSF cognizant Program Officer, including providing notification of any critical project management issues such as changes in key personnel, cost, schedule, and management structure or procedures prior to implementing such changes.

2.4 Key Personnel. Except for the Principal Investigator(s) (PIs) or Co-PIs identified in this award, requests to make any changes to personnel, organizations, and/or partnerships specifically named in the proposal, that have been approved as part of this award, shall be submitted in writing to the cognizant NSF Program Officer for approval prior to any changes taking effect. Requests for prior approval of changes to the PI(s) must be submitted through FastLane for review by the NSF Program Officer and approval by the NSF Contracting/Agreements Officer.

2.5 Planning Requirements

a. Annual Plan. An Annual Plan will be submitted each year for the approval of the NSF Program Officer. The first Annual Plan is due to NSF within 60 days of award. The Plan will describe the objectives, deliverables, specific tasks with milestones, and cost and schedule for the full remaining period of the award. The Plan will incorporate the use of a credible project cost/schedule tracking system to monitor project activity at the appropriate task levels. Tasks shall clearly support the stated project deliverables and objectives. The performance objectives, deliverables and milestones describing the tasks for the current year will be sufficiently detailed to allow project tracking and evaluation by the NSF and the review panels that the Foundation will assemble to review the project. The Plan will address the path by which the project team will attempt to move toward satisfying the Preliminary Design requirements as outlined in the Large Facilities Manual. Out-year performance objectives, deliverables, and milestones will address the same issues, but will not be expected to be presented at the same level of detail.

b. Plan Evaluation. The findings and recommendations from NSF reviews of the project, where available, will be among the input used by the cognizant NSF Program Officer to evaluate the Plan.

c. Changes. The Awardee will make any required changes to the Plan within the limits of available funding; the NSF Program Officer shall not withhold approval unreasonably.

2.6. Reporting Requirements

a. Submission Requirements. The Awardee will provide ad hoc and regular reports as designated by the NSF Program Officer with specific content, format, and submission timelines established by the NSF Program Officer. The Awardee shall submit all required reports via FastLane using the appropriate reporting category. For any type of report not specifically mentioned in FastLane, the Awardee will use the "Interim Reporting" function to submit reports, except as specifically noted below.

b. Content. The reports will consist of a summary of work accomplished during the reporting period, including major scientific and technical accomplishments as well as financial/administrative performance, an assessment of current or anticipated problem areas and corrective actions, and progress in the area of project governance.

c. Quarterly Reports. Within 90 days of receipt of the present award, and every four months thereafter, the PI will review the status of all activities under this award, and will submit to NSF a brief summary including: status of subawards and contracts; design efforts, and coordination efforts with the DUSEL Project Team; and other data that is needed to characterize the overall performance of this award including status in meeting key project milestones defined in the Annual Plan.

d. Annual Report. For each 12-month period beginning October 1, 2009 (the effective date of this award) through September 30, 20012 the PI will submit an annual report at least three months prior to the end of the then current period. The Annual Report will describe progress made based on milestones, objectives, targets and deliverables as presented in the approved Annual Project Plan; and will present relevant metrics or other measures of performance. Significant differences between planned activities and actual activities and outcomes will be discussed. Information on staffing and liquidation of funds (spend-out) will be presented in a format mutually agreed upon by the NSF Program Officer and the Awardee. The Annual Report will be evaluated in conjunction with the Awardee's request for continuing support.

e. Final Report. The Awardee shall submit a Final Report within 90 days following the expiration date of the award.

f. Consequences of Delay. Failure to provide the required Annual or Final project reports will result in significant delay in NSF's review and processing of any future funding increments, as well as any pending proposals for the PI and the Co-PI.

2.7. Awardee Support of Ongoing Management and Oversight

a. Availability. The Awardee will ensure full commitment and cooperation governing structure components and all project staff during all ongoing NSF project management and oversight activities. The Awardee will ensure availability of all key institutional partners during any desk or on-site review, as well as timely access to all project documentation.

b. Annual Project Review. NSF will conduct a review of the Awardee's efforts under this CA at least once each year, to include management issues, cost and schedule objectives, and scientific and technical performance and issues. The time and level of the review will be determined by the NSF Program Officer. This review may be conducted by the NSF Program Officer, other NSF employees, consultants and advisors, and may take the form of an informal desk review, site visit, reverse site visit, or external panel review. NSF will make every effort to schedule such reviews at a mutually agreeable time, but not less than once yearly.

c. Site Visits. NSF may conduct additional site visits at its discretion to monitor the project management and progress of activities.

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