Crews working at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA) site in Commerce City, Colorado have recently been awarded the Gold Hard Hat Award for their exceptional performance on the Enhanced Hazardous Waste Landfill Cover project. The Gold Hard Hat Awards are an annual competition to determine the best projects completed in the state of Colorado by local firms. Judging is done by a panel of industry experts, and based on design quality, innovation, craftsmanship, community and industry involvement, ability to overcome challenges, and overall excellence in project performance.

The project, which began in September 2008 and is scheduled for completion in December 2009, is a 26-acre multi-layered CERCLA Cap over a hazardous waste landfill. It encapsulates more than 1.2 million cubic yards of hazardous materials and is the final remedial action associated with the transformation of the once desolate area into a National Wildlife Refuge.

In late December 2008, the project site was hit by a 56-hour sustained windstorm which not only caused millions of dollars in damage to homes and businesses in the surrounding area it also damaged several hundred-thousand dollars worth of installed materials on the landfill cover. The crew worked long hours, 7-days per week, with additional personnel to remove the damaged materials, repair areas that could be saved, and replaced the geosynthetics where needed. The project schedule was retained within a few months and the original estimated deadline for the task was met.

The RMA is approximately 10 miles northeast of downtown Denver. The U.S. Army purchased and used the approximately 17,000 acres of land to manufacture, store, and decommission conventional munitions, chemical weapons, and nerve agents from 1942 through 1982.