Boulder County officials expect to select a company next week to clean up what’s left of the homes destroyed by the Marshall fire in late December — a job that will take months to complete and cost tens of millions of dollars.

Cleanup has been one of the biggest questions for people who lost their homes in the 6,000-acre wildfire on Dec. 30 because no one can rebuild until their property is cleared of debris and hazardous waste.

These disaster-recovery contracts are worth tens of millions of dollars — the county can be reimbursed for much of the money — and the competition to win them is fierce. Only a handful of companies in the United States are qualified to handle such cleanup jobs, which require expertise in scooping up and hauling hazardous waste on a large scale and in a short amount of time.

Boulder County’s request for proposal on the wildfire cleanup is 70 pages long, and, on Wednesday, the county posted a 76-page addendum after prospective bidders submitted questions about the bid process and the demands of the job.

Bids are due Tuesday, and the county hopes to pick a contractor during the second week of February, according to a Boulder County news release. The same contractor will oversee the cleanup of properties in Louisville, Superior and unincorporated Boulder County.

Typically, the county awards contracts to the lowest bidder, said Andrew Barth, a spokesman for Boulder County Public Works Department.

“We will go through their qualifications to see the work they have completed to see if they are viable to do the work,” Barth said. “There’s a couple of large ones that are here and ready to go if they get the contract.”

Barth did not know a ballpark figure of what the cleanup could cost. However, industry experts estimate the entire project would cost more than $100 million. In Graves County, Kentucky, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reserved $120 million for debris cleanup after a massive tornado destroyed downtown Mayfield in December, but that cleanup doesn’t involve as much toxic waste as what is created in a fire.

Homeowners who register for the county’s debris cleanup program should not pay out-of-pocket for their lots to be cleared. Boulder County will collect payments from their insurance companies, then apply to FEMA to have 75% of the expenses reimbursed. The county and state will be responsible for the remaining 25% of the costs, according to information on the county’s Marshall fire website.

Boulder County’s request for proposal estimates there are 1,118 destroyed structures, 353 damaged buildings and 1,741 trees that need to be removed.

The request for proposal details how the work will be carried out as crews clean the piles of charred homes from the burn area. Each site is likely to be contaminated by various products such as car batteries, electronics, household chemicals and asbestos used in building materials. The ash also creates a health hazard when it is stirred into the air, and there are requirements for dust control and air quality monitoring.

The rules surrounding the hauling of hazardous waste specify which landfills in Colorado are permitted to accept it. A firm hired to monitor the cleanup must collect invoices and document every load hauled away from a burned property.

There also are requirements for recycling metals and concrete, and for composting vegetation when possible.

Meanwhile, Boulder County already has collected hundreds of pounds of spoiled food and removed almost 200 destroyed cars from the streets, according to a county news release. And curbside collection of furniture, appliances, landscaping and other household items ruined by wind and smoke began Monday. The pickup of those materials will last for two weeks.

There are other deadlines for Marshall fire recovery in the next week:

Anyone who wants to participate in the county’s debris removal and site cleanup program has until Feb. 8 to fill out a right-of-entry form, which gives contractors and county employees permission to enter the property and start removing debris. Those who do not complete the form will be responsible for their own cleanup. To find forms, visit tinyurl.com/marshallfiredebris.

Finally, the deadline to apply for disaster unemployment assistance with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment is Wednesday. That program provides unemployment payments to people who lost their jobs because of the Marshall fire. For more information, visit tinyurl.com/disasterunemployment.

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