USAID Reaches Out to Contractors for Agent Orange Cleanup in Vietnam

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) yesterday began reaching out to potential vendors to carry out its planned cleanup of ground contamination in Vietnam, according a contracting document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has located.  The environmental damage stemming from dioxin, which  continues to linger long after the U.S. military’s departure from Vietnam in 1975, will cost millions of dollars over the next four years, the document says.

The proposed cleanup project at Da Nang Airport—the former base of operations for numerous units of the U.S. Armed Forces during the Vietnamese conflict—will focus on the removal and remediation of dioxin-tainted soil, a presolicitation notice dated April 1 says (Solicitation Number: 486-11-028).

“The airport in Da Nang, Vietnam has been referred to as a dioxin ‘hotspot’ due to high dioxin concentrations remaining decades after large volumes of Agent Orange and other defoliants were handled at this site,” the document says. “…The Government of Vietnam (GVN) has requested assistance from the United States Government to remediate dioxin-contaminated soil and sediment at the Da Nang Airport.”

USAID in 2008 launched an environmental initiative in that nation, and the agency the following year conducted a comprehensive assessment necessary steps to carry out the cleanup. USAID anticipates that the remediation phase will begin in December and will continue until at least October 2015, not including a follow-up six-month contract-closeout activity period.

The prime contractor selected for the project, which has an estimated $10 million value, must be a U.S. vendor, though private Vietnamese companies are eligible as subcontractors. While the presolicitation notice offers a general summary of the plan, USAID will release a more detailed Request for Proposals around April 20, the document said.

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