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Tetra Tech Wins $62M Contract with EPA Clean Water Program

The company, which has worked with the agency since the 1970s, will provide technical expertise to the Office of Wastewater Management.

  • Jan 15, 2011

Tetra Tech, Inc., has been awarded a five-year $62 million contract to support the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Wastewater Management in protecting and restoring the nation’s waters and watersheds, the company said in a Jan. 12 press release.

This single-award contract is 45 percent larger than the previous contract the company held. Since the 1970s, Tetra Tech has provided technical and programmatic support to EPA’s water protection programs.

Tetra Tech will provide technical expertise to EPA as it uses the watershed approach to address challenging water pollution problems, promote the use of innovative technologies, and address the nation’s growing wastewater infrastructure needs.

EPA's Office of Wastewater Management oversees a range of programs contributing to the well-being of the nation's waters and watersheds. Through its programs and initiatives, the Office of Wastewater Management supports the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, commonly known as the Clean Water Act, by promoting effective and responsible water use, treatment, disposal, and management and by encouraging the protection and restoration of watersheds.

Comments

Sat, Jan 15, 2011 Peter Maier US

The first thing Tetra Tech should do is tell the EPA how the BOD test should be applied, as its present incorrect application caused the failure of the Clean Water Act. The test is supposed to measure all the oxygen required to convert organic matter into carbon dioxide, nitrates and water, but since the EPA only uses its 5-day value (BOD5), it ignores 60% of the pollution Congress intended to address. Both carbonaceous (fecal) waste and nitrogenous (urine and protein) waste exert an oxygen demand (60% C-BOD and 40% N-BOD), so when EPA established ‘secondary treatment’ (85% treatment) requirements, based on BOD5 only, it ignored not only part of the C-BOD, but all N-BOD, while this waste, besides exerting an oxygen demand, also in all its forms is a fertilizer for algae, contributes to eutrophication often resulting in dead zones. Now a major problem in many of the Nation’s (and worlds) opens waters. The sad part is that the EPA already in 1976 was aware of sewage treatment achieving not only 95% treatment of both carbonaceous and nitrogenous waste, but also could be built and operated far less expensive as conventional, factual odor control, sewage treatment facilities. EPA clearly also failed to establish best available treatment and now with its watershed (TMDL) programs also violates Congress specific demand for a technology-based implementation program, since such program obviously are water-quality-based programs. In 1987 EPA of the record admitted that the test and regulations should be corrected, but at the same time claimed that this would be impossible as it would require a re-education and retooling of an entire industry. 62 million dollar seems a high price to pay to cover up these facts, but Tetra Tech will probably do an excellent job, hopefully explaining what is correctly described in any sewage treatment engineering textbook. However, if they do not require proper BOD testing, it still will be impossible to establish the real treatment efficiency of a sewage treatment plant and what their effluent waste loading will be on receiving water bodies. It also will be possible that sewage treatment facilities are going to be designed to treat the wrong waste in raw sewage.

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