The project starts in September and is due to be completed by late 2008. The client is the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), which is responsible for all the work required to put on the Games. The preparation of the East London site for layout and construction involves a huge amount of decontamination work.
HBR's soil decontamination contract for the future Olympic complex involves:
- 'washing' 530,000 tonnes;
- biologically cleaning 40,000 tonnes;
- immobilizing 20,000 tonnes.
Two so-called 'biobeds' with a combined capacity of 12,000 tonnes will be built for the biological cleaning process. Microbiological breakdown in these concrete tanks will be accelerated by using heating tubes and injecting air and oxygen. HBR will use a mixing plant and additives such as cement and bentonite to immobilize contaminated soil.
Heijmans Blackwell Remediation Ltd is a joint venture between Heijmans Infra Techniek and the English contractor C.A. Blackwell (Contracts) Ltd. Collaboration between the two companies was rewarded in 2005 with the Anglo-Dutch Award for Enterprise. This award is presented to companies that make a positive contribution to British-Dutch relations.
Prior to awarding the contract for the Olympic Park work, the ODA required contractors to go through a prequalification process. HBR was selected for inclusion in the list of specialist contractors for large-scale decontamination work. Earlier this year, HBR signed two contracts worth a total of €7 million with the ODA for a civil engineering and decontamination project. The project consists of moving a number of companies as part of the overall programme of cleaning up and reorganizing the Olympic Park site. This HBR project is expected to be completed by the end of this summer.
The Olympic Park location, the Lower Lee Valley in Stratford, is an old and very polluted industrial area in one of the most neglected parts of the city. The aim is to upgrade the area and make it a more attractive place that will continue to reap the benefits even when the Olympic Games are over. In all, site preparation involves the excavation of over 1.8 million tonnes of soil in and around Olympic Park. Great Britain has never seen soil decontamination on this scale before. In 2012 the 200-plus hectare site will have a new 80,000-seat Olympic stadium, an athletes' village with 9,000 residential units, and a media park. Olympic Park will accommodate basketball, fencing and handball facilities, the swimming pool, a cycling track, and fields for hockey and archery. When the Olympics are over, the Lower Lee Valley will become part of the city again.
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