...increase in revenue to $322 million. It was the third consecutive year of double-digit growth, says Curt Cramer, executive vice president of the Dutch-owned company’s U.S. environmental division.

Although ARCADIS earns only 10% of its revenue from federal work, Cramer credits the Defense Dept.’s fixed-price remediation work with helping boost the portfolio. The company has booked about 10 such jobs to date. “We need to continue to expand that component of our business,” Cramer says. “Basically these are design-build projects for environmental work.”

Others say that the fixed-price approach may lead to site closure, but it can be expensive and also discourages trying new technologies. “Companies can’t take a risk,” Scott says.

One mid-range firm that claims to be winning business through technology is The Kleinfelder Group Inc. The site remediation specialist boosted revenue by 7% to $44 million in 2003, but still slipped two spots to No. 102. As the hazardous waste market has matured, a successful contractor must be willing to tackle “more difficult, complex, larger sites with innovative approaches,” says Dave Jenkins, principal environmental engineer.

Kleinfelder goes after fast-moving, soluble contaminates that threaten groundwater supplies, such as perchlorate and methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), often by drilling horizontal wells. The company borrowed the drilling technology from the petroleum and fiberoptic industries. Site characterization also is crucial. “We work with the best hydrologists we can find, like Eric Nuttall of the University of New Mexico,” says Dave Cook, a Kleinfelder engineer.

The firm now is working on several complex sites where competitors have had mixed results. “We’re working on a five-mile-long perchlorate trench at the Stringfellow Superfund site” in Riverside County, Calif., Jenkins says.

Kleinfelder also recently won a five-year contract from the Air force Center for Environmental Excellence with a $20-million cap. “We beat up some much larger firms to win that one,” says Jenkins. “We seldom recommend pump and treat, but our costs were about half those of the others and we cause negligible damage to the surface.”

The Haskell Co. made one of the biggest moves up the list, climbing from No. 147 last year to No. 67, thanks to a 72% increase in revenue to $75 million. “Most of that was from our food and beverage division, which has captured the bottled water processing market,” says John Patton, president of Haskell’s civil group. The design-build specialist also has snagged a number of small water and wastewater treatment projects in the Florida Keys. Patton says his division now is targeting the California environmental market.

In the depressed solid waste marketplace, SCS Engineers managed to boost annual revenue by 8% in 2003, enough to move it up three notches to No. 73. Design, consulting and construction management services on two $10-million Washington, D.C., transfer station upgrades helped, says James J. Walsh, president and CEO. Prospects are good for brownfields and underground storage tank work, he adds.

Near the top of the list, Bechtel recorded a 10% gain in revenue thanks in part to wastewater treatment plant work in Iraq. Internationally, the company sees a major opportunity with the British government’s move to outsource nuclear cleanup work, says Craig Weaver, president of Energy & Environment at Bechtel National Inc.

Even executives at some Top 200 firms with disappointing financial numbers in 2003 are optimistic about the propsects this year. Tetra Tech recorded $709 million in environmental revenue in 2003, a performance 46% below its 2002 total (ENR 6/2/2003 p. 34). As a result, the firm tumbled five spots, to No. 10.

There is no cause to worry, says Michael Bieber, vice president of investor relations. The 2003 numbers did not count about $300 million in revenue for hazardous waste-related emergency training that showed up in 2002 numbers. The training, which should be included under the environmental management sector, is growing by 10 to 20% per year, he says.

Tetra Tech’s current backlog also is healthy, with nearly $5 billion in new contracts landed in 2003. Like many other firms, Tetra Tech will post higher numbers in 2004, Bieber believes.