...mainly will involve rehabilitation and maintenance of sewer and drinking-water lines, says WASA’s chief engineer, Leonard Benson. WASA says it expects to receive funding within 45 to 90 days.

The law also requires that 20% of projects in each state go toward green infrastructure projects when possible. James Hipps, senior vice president and chief development officer for Overland Park, Kansas-based Black & Veatch’s water business, says that states can count portions or components of projects toward the overall 20% goal.

The Green Option

For example, a firm could design a plant or pumping station partially powered by an alternative energy source such as wind or solar energy or plan to install a digester to capture methane gas at a wastewater treatment facility. “There are a lot of avenues to getting to that 20% requirement,” he says.

Spartanburg Water’s West, also president of the Water Environment Federation, a clean-water educational and advocacy group, notes that the discussions surrounding water infrastructure during debate of the ARRA brought attention to the nation’s infrastructure needs. “This has allowed us to begin a dialogue on a national level about something we were struggling to have a conversation about before,” she says.

While EPA has decided how much each state will receive for water and wastewater projects, it has not yet finalized plans for the allocation of $600 million set aside for Superfund projects, says EPA spokeswoman Latisha Petteway. Funds will be used for remediation at sites on the National Priorities List and must be spent by Sept. 30, 2010.

Although the specifics have yet to be worked out, EPA is likely to use full-service, multi-year Response Action Contracts as the primary contract vehicle to support stimulus-led, shovel-ready remedial actions under Superfund, says Harvey Coppage, vice president and director of environmental services, Black & Veatch federal services division.

HDR’s Mueller adds that ARRA’s additional funding should create a significant amount of work for firms that provide environmental remediation services. “That’s an area where we will see some relatively immediate benefit,” he says.

Environmental firms are also eagerly awaiting the release of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan for its $4.6-billion ARRA funding for civil-works projects, expected at any time. The Corps is expected to issue requests for proposals some time within the next 60 to 90 days, says Dan Batrack, CEO of Pasadena, Calif.-based Tetra Tech.

DOE Cleanup

The U.S. Energy Dept. on March 30 released its plans for the ARRA’s $6 billion to accelerate environmental cleanup work at former nuclear-weapons sites across 12 states around the country. The two largest recipients of the environmental cleanup funding will be the Hanford site in Washington state and the Savannah River site in Aiken, S.C. The Richland Operations Office at Hanford will receive $1.635 billion, largely for cleanup of facilities, waste sites and groundwater along the Columbia River to shrink the active area of cleanup at the 586-sq-mile Hanford site to 75 sq miles or less by 2015. The Savannah River site will receive $1.615 billion, primarily for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities and contaminated areas throughout the site and reducing the site’s industrial area by 40% by September 2011.

The $468 million earmarked for the Idaho Cleanup Project at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls will help shrink the site’s 775-acre footprint to a goal of 247 acres by 2011 as the site continues transition to become a center of DOE advanced nuclear-power research.

Going Nuclear

The funds will accelerate deactivation and decommissioning of old nuclear weapon-related structures, with 89 earmarked for demolition. The site will also be able to complete earlier close to two acres of “targeted waste retrievals” and build a barrier over the area to protect the Snake River aquifer. It will also expedite off-site shipments of low-level mixed chemical and radioactives wastes “currently in inventory,” accelerate movement of 16 shipments of spent nuclear fuel from wet storage to dry and move 53 liners of transuranic wastes to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.

The big boost in funding for nuclear cleanup work could overwhelm current DOE procurement staff. A report from agency Inspector General Gregory Friedman, released on April 1, called on the agency to recruit and hire more contract specialists in light of the oncoming increase in projects.

Tetra Tech’s Batrack notes that the A/E/C industry overall may not be entirely prepared for the big boost in projects. “Things are quite slow right now—the RFPs have not...been distributed by the clients” yet, he says, but “based simply on the funds, it should actually get our sector quite busy.”