News Releases | ARRA

Local veteran-owned small business gets ARRA funds to upgrade ERDF

05.04.2010

RICHLAND, Wash.—Washington Closure Hanford has awarded a subcontract worth nearly $7 million to ERLFowler, a local small business, to design and build an operations center and three maintenance facilities at Hanford’s Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility.

The new facilities are part of a $100 million expansion and upgrade of ERDF funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The expansion and upgrade project is designed to allow ERDF personnel to safely handle increased waste volumes generated by Washington Closure and other Hanford contractors as a result of Recovery Act spending, as well as generally increasing cleanup work.

Dave Brockman, the DOE Richland Operations Office manager said, “The tremendous amount of work getting done on the Hanford Site has increased the waste volume significantly at ERDF. This upgrade will allow ERDF workers to continue their outstanding safety record amid some of the largest waste volumes the facility has ever seen.”

ELRFowler will begin design work immediately on four facilities – an operations center, a waste container maintenance facility, a truck maintenance facility and a heavy equipment maintenance facility. Construction will begin this summer.

ERDF is Hanford’s onsite disposal facility for cleanup wastes and is managed by Washington Closure Hanford. Waste generated during cleanup activities from across the 586-square-mile Hanford Site is transported to ERDF for permanent disposal.

A year ago, ERDF personnel disposed of about 200 containers of waste a day, averaging about 22-tons each. Now, the average is closer to 450 containers a day. “But we expect to handle up to 650 per day when work really picks up this summer,” said Rick Caulfield, Washington Closure project manager for ERDF expansion and upgrades.

To support waste disposal efforts, Washington Closure has 850 waste containers in service, 48 trucks to haul the containers, eight bulldozers, two landfill compactors, three front-end loaders, and four track-hoe excavators, as well as water trucks, road scrapers, vibratory rollers and maintenance vehicles.

“Keeping that equipment running and in tip-top condition is a full-time job for 15 people, most of whom have been working outside or under an open-sided cover for many years,” Caulfield said.
“Getting the people, equipment and tools inside and out of the elements will help increase productivity and safety. We’re fortunate Recovery Act funding was available to help increase safety for our workers and create engineering and construction jobs in the community,” he said.

The new operations center will help alleviate severe overcrowding of personnel and also accommodate new employees hired to handle the increasing waste volumes.
ELRFowler is a local small business formed as a joint venture between ELR Consulting Inc. and Fowler General Construction Inc.

Washington Closure manages the $2.4 billion River Corridor Closure Project for DOE’s Richland Operations Office. In addition to managing ERDF, Washington Closure is responsible for cleaning up 370 waste sites, demolishing 486 buildings and placing three nuclear facilities in interim safe storage. Washington Closure is a limited liability company owned by URS, Bechtel and CH2M Hill.

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