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Local small businesses to backfill 2.5 million cubic yards

10.01.2008

RICHLAND, Wash.—Washington Closure Hanford has selected three local small businesses to help backfill Hanford waste sites and burial grounds after they are cleaned up.

George A. Grant Inc., North Wind Inc. and Watts Construction Inc., all of the Tri-Cities, will provide backfill on an as-requested basis starting immediately. The work is valued at $12 million over the life of the subcontract, which runs through 2013.

Over the next several years, Washington Closure estimates workers will remove more than 2.5 million cubic yards of contaminated material during cleanup activities. Hanford cleanup agreements require that once each waste site is cleaned up it be backfilled to match the surrounding grade. As part of the subcontract, roughly the same amount of clean fill will be retrieved from a series of pits located throughout the Hanford Site and transported to backfill the remediated waste sites.

The first task order issued under the new subcontract will be to backfill by December 31, about 105,000 cubic yards at the 618-7 Burial Ground near the 300 Area, the city of Richland and the Columbia River.

Subcontracting in advance with several companies will allow Washington Closure to manage backfill activities with greater speed and flexibility.

Washington Closure manages the River Corridor Closure Project at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in southeastern Washington state. Washington Closure’s 8-year, $2.2 billion contract calls for cleaning up 370 waste sites and burial grounds, as well as demolishing 486 contaminated buildings.

Since the project began in 2005, Washington Closure has awarded nearly 90 percent of its subcontracted work to small businesses, significantly more than its goal of 65 percent.