Epa Plans 3 Seminars On Cleanup Sessions To Help Contractors Vie For Bunker Hill Project

Silver Valley contractors looking to for a share of the Bunker Hill Superfund cleanup have an opportunity today and Saturday to get the information they need to compete with outside contractors.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to hold three seminars for contractors interested in bidding for cleanup work, said Earl Liverman, project manager for the massive cleanup.

At stake are millions of dollars of security, maintenance and other contracts in the 21-square-mile cleanup site. Local contractors protested their lack of opportunity for the EPA contracts in February.

Previous cleanup work involved nearly all outside contractors, said Jim Hopper, who owns trucks and backhoes for excavating and general contracting. He said he’s been a contractor for 10 years in the Silver Valley.

Hopper plans to attend the session because “the rules for federal contracting seem to change every year.” He’s done work on the cleanup before, and had to carry $1 million in insurance to comply with federal standards.

“We’ve always tried to get more locals involved here either as contractors or labor hands,” he said. “I’ve seen quite a few people buying up equipment just to try to get in on this.”

Federal contracting guidelines require environmental and safety training along with adequate insurance and bonding, Liverman said. The requirements are often more than what local contractors carry.

“We wanted to make sure that local contractors have the opportunity to compete on a level playing field,” Liverman said. “We want this to be a clearinghouse of information for the public.”

All three sessions will be held at the Kellogg Middle School, 800 Bunker Avenue in Kellogg. Times are 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. today and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday.

Interested contractors will be able to talk with representatives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers about the federal contracting process.

In the future, contractors will find information about the site through Herb Solum, a newly-hired liaison with the Silver Valley Economic Development Corp., said Jim Hayes, executive director.

“We’ve been trying to tell them they ought to hire as many local people as possible, and when we say local we mean from Missoula to Spokane and from the border to Moscow,” Hayes said. “We can’t expect to get preferential treatment because it’s federal money, but we can provide a level playing field.”

Liverman said some of the contracts up for bid soon will be a security contract worth about $250,000 a year, an infrastructure maintenance contract worth about that much if not more. Contracts for razing the zinc plant and lead smelter at the Bunker Hill site will be worth millions.

Kellogg City Councilman Todd Goodson credited the new attention to local contractors to the Silver Valley Task Force, a group of environmental and local leaders that coordinates cleanup activities.

“The locals were pretty much run over here when the EPA first got here and said ‘this is the way things are going to be whether you like it or not,”’ Goodson said. “I think this is all positive for the local contractors.”