USAID Announces $32M Contract for Dioxin Cleanup at Vietnam’s Bien Hoa

The United States Mission to Vietnam, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced a $32 million contract to the U.S. firm Tetra Tech to carry on the cleanup of dioxin-contaminated soil in and around the Bien Hoa air base in southern Dong Nai province, local media said.

Under the contract, Tetra Tech will provide engineering design, construction management, and environmental monitoring of civil works and treatment activities for dioxin-contaminated soil and sediment to reduce the risk of exposure to people on the air base as well as in the nearby communities, aiming to restore the land for full use.

Bien Hoa air base dioxin remediation project is expected to take ten years to complete with an estimated budget of $450 million. To date, the U.S. government has contributed $218.25 million out of a total expected commitment of $300 million.

In March, during her trip to Vietnam, USAID Administrator Samantha Power joined other U.S. and Vietnamese government officials to announce another contract of up to $73 million awarded to the U.S.-based Nelson Environmental Remediation USA to design and build a treatment facility to decontaminate soil and sediment on and around the Bien Hoa air base.

Since April 2019, USAID has worked with the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defense to clean up approximately 500,000 cubic meters of dioxin-contaminated soil and sediment on and around the Bien Hoa air base. In 2022, USAID completed remediation of an off-base lake (Gate 2 Lake) and returned it to the community for use as a recreational area, completed remediation of the first on-base area (Southwest area), commemorating this milestone with a U.S. government-funded park on the site, and completed the construction of the long-term storage facility for soil with low levels of contamination.

(Bao Giao Thong, Tuoi Tre, khoahocphattrien.vn, VnExpress, NLD, Mekong ASEAN, 24H, Lao Dong, Dau Tu, Sputnik Vietnamese, Thanh Nien)