A Tanana company will dig diesel out from under old BIA school sites

The federal government ran schools in Alaska Native villages for decades and left diesel in the ground under some of them. It is now paying a company from Tanana to dig it out.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education awarded Tanana Commercial Company four contracts on Sept. 13, worth $247,786 in all, for cleanup work in Kotzebue, Napaskiak, Eek and Akiak. All four were set aside for Indian small businesses, and the work has to be finished by September 2027.

Kotzebue takes the largest share, $151,260, or about three-fifths of the total. The records there describe removing roughly 200 cubic yards of diesel-contaminated soil and mapping where contamination has reached the groundwater. Napaskiak's contract is $36,569, Eek's $32,273 and Akiak's $27,684.

At Eek and Napaskiak, the target is old school ground. Investigations between 2010 and 2025 found petroleum in the soil and groundwater at the former Bureau of Indian Affairs elementary school in Eek, including diesel range organics, a marker for diesel fuel.

Tanana Commercial Company has worked at Eek before, on a $39,744 remediation contract that ran from April 2025 to this past June.