OAK RIDGE, Tenn. – The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $10.1 million to an Ohio-based small business to contain and cap contaminated soil in the Bethel Valley area near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.  Starting in October, LATA-Sharp Remediation Services, LLC of Westerville, Ohio is expected to begin the soil remediation work at ORNL. The funding is being awarded as part of an existing DOE contract that allows sites across the country to quickly move forward on Recovery Act projects.

“The Recovery Act has provided the funding we needed to accelerate the environmental cleanup work that we are doing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory,” said Gerald Boyd, Manager of DOE’s Oak Ridge Office. “And by using contracts that are already in place within the Department of Energy, we are able to quickly award projects, put people to work, and benefit the local economy.”

Under the $10 million task order, LATA-Sharp Remediation Services will remove small areas of radioactive and chemically contaminated soil located on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory site. The contractor will also place a multi-layer liner cap over two outside solid waste storage areas to minimize the opportunity for groundwater contamination in the Bethel Valley Watershed, similar to the Melton Valley capping project. DOE expects the project will be completed by September 2011. Contractors Energy Solutions and Tetra-Tech, both which have offices in Oak Ridge, are teaming partners with LATA-Sharp for this project along with Fluor Federal Services of Greenville, South Carolina.

The task order was awarded under the nationwide DOE Environmental Management Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity multiple award contracts. These existing contracts allow DOE to compete separate tasks among the multiple award contractors. The project is being funded under the $755 million in Recovery Act funding provided to the Oak Ridge Office specifically for environmental cleanup projects across the Oak Ridge Reservation. To date, 831 jobs have been created or saved on the Reservation as a result of Recovery Act funding for the Environmental Management Program.