Battelle Wins $13 M Water Security Contract from EPA
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded Battelle a five-year, $13 million contract to evaluate the performance of homeland security technologies related to water protection and wide-area decontamination
EPA is the sector-specific agency for drinking water and wastewater critical infrastructure protection and is the lead federal agency for the remediation of areas contaminated by terrorist events involving the release of biological organisms, biotoxins, chemical warfare agents, toxic industrial chemicals, toxic industrial materials, and radiological materials. The agency's homeland security research provides procedures and methods that would assist EPA and other responders in the detection and containment of contamination, and in the remediation of sites following terrorist attacks.
“We established a successful framework for technology testing and evaluation for the agency in 1997," said Karen Riggs, Battelle program manager, "and we have continued to build on that framework with several major programs, including this new contract.”
The new contract follows Battelle’s successful management of the predecessor contract.
Under the new contract, Battelle will continue to test, evaluate, and report on the performance of the following types of technologies:
- Decontamination/surface cleaning of wide areas, including buildings, structures, and public spaces;
- Analytical techniques for continuous measurement of fumigant chemicals;
- Decontamination of drinking water distribution systems and wastewater treatment plants;
- Water quality monitoring and detection;
- Ambient air quality monitoring and detection;
- Air cleaning methodologies for use in buildings and other structures;
- Personal protective equipment.
Other critical efforts under the contract include managing established stakeholder groups and technical panels, establishing and maintaining a continuous project information dissemination and diffusion capability, and developing standards that can be used by others to test and evaluate technologies.
Riggs said this contract will draw on expertise from several Battelle product lines, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, and other subcontractors. Battelle manages Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and co-manages Idaho National Laboratory—both for the U.S. Department of Energy.