Small Firms Win Big Contracts for Emergency Responses

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded about $190 million to three small businesses for support during emergency responses that require environmental clean-up work.

“These contracts provide EPA with rapid response and support capability for environmental emergencies ranging from natural disasters to acts of terrorism,” said Donald S. Welsh, EPA’s mid-Atlantic regional administrator. “We are especially happy to award these contracts to small business firms as part of EPA’s commitment to small and disadvantaged businesses.”

The EPA office located in Philadelphia has responsibility for environmental emergency response for Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and West Virginia. It is the same EPA office that successfully cleaned up anthrax and ricin contamination in D.C. congressional office buildings between 2001 and 2003. Under the EPA contracts, worth about $63 million each, the companies would be deployed in emergencies to help the agency assess environmental damage, stabilize and clean up hazards.

EPA awarded the contracts to: Guardian Environmental Services Company, Inc., in Bear, Del.; WRS Infrastructure & Environment, Inc., in Bristol, Pa.; and KEMRON Environmental Services, Inc. of Vienna, Va.