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![handle is hein.gao/gaocrptauhg0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
A G A O Comptroller General
. Accountability * Integrity * Reliability of the United States
United States Government Accountability Office
Washington, DC 20548
Decision
Matter of. Bighorn Lumber Company, Inc.
File: B-299906
Date: September 25, 2007
Alan I. Saltman, Esq., Saltman & Stevens, P.C., for the protester.
Lori Polin Jones, Esq., Department of Agriculture, for the agency.
Nora K. Adkins, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General
Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.
DIGEST
An agency may not correct an obvious mistake if the bidder's intended bid amount is
neither ascertainable from the face of the bid nor supported by clear and convincing
evidence.
DECISION
Bighorn Lumber Company, Inc. protests the award of a timber sales contract to
Trapper Peak Timber Company by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest
Service, under the Two Elks timber sale in the MedicineBow-Routt National Forest,
Colorado.
We sustain the protest.
On May 12, 2007, the Forest Service advertised the Two Elks timber sale in a
Wyoming newspaper. The timber sale prospectus and bid forms called for bidders to
submit only one bid amount, a weighted average minimum (WAM) bid rate,' on a
1 The WAM is the bid rate for the stumpage of various species of timber covered by
the sale. According to the prospectus, [t]he Forest Service shall establish bid rates
by species in the contract by multiplying each species' minimum acceptable bid rate
by the bid increase percentage [and] [t]he bid increase percentage is the bidder's
weighted average bid rate divided by the minimum acceptable weighted average rate.
The total amount for stumpage is the volume of each biddable species multiplied by
its bid rate. Agency Report (AR), exh. 1, Timber Sale Prospectus, at 2.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.gao/gaocrptauhg0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)