OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – Bechtel Jacobs Co. LLC, has awarded a $1.35 million contract to a Louisiana small business to provide geosynthetic materials and installation services for expansion of the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF) on the Oak Ridge Reservation.

Baton Rouge based Environmental Specialties International, Inc. is expected to begin installing a geosynthetic liner at the EMWMF in early October 2009. The work, which is being funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will employ a crew of about 17 people, part of the 40 - 60 workers who will be employed during the overall expansion project.

The EMWMF serves as the disposal facility for low-level radioactive, hazardous, and mixed waste resulting from DOE’s environmental cleanup work in Oak Ridge. Placement of a geosynthetic liner is just one part of the overall $35 million total expansion project funded by the Recovery Act.

“It is critical that as environmental cleanup and demolition of older facilities accelerates across the Reservation under the Recovery Act, we provide safe, cost-effective methods for disposing the waste generated by those activities,” said Gerald Boyd, Manager of DOE’s Oak Ridge Office.

The first phase of the subcontract is to install a liner to Cell 5, which is currently under construction, at a cost of about $700,000.  With the addition of Cell 5, the total capacity of EMWMF will total 1.7 million cubic yards, equivalent to 113,000 standard dump truck loads.

The scope of the subcontract also includes $650,000 for optional work to provide similar services if the decision is made to add a sixth cell to the EMWMF. This would bring the total capacity to 2.2 million cubic yards, subject to approval by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EMWMF opened in 2002 on a 120-acre site in the Bear Creek Valley area of the DOE Oak Ridge Reservation and presently contains 4 operating cells. Typical waste placed in the facility originates from dismantled buildings and includes scrap equipment, building debris, and contaminated soil, all from DOE’s Oak Ridge environmental cleanup activities.