BLM bought $125,098 in off-road vehicles from one Delta Junction company in 11 days

The Bureau of Land Management has awarded $82,505 in contracts to Tanana Adventure Sports, LLC, a Delta Junction company, for an off-road utility vehicle (UTV) and snowmobiles used in the agency's abandoned mine lands work in the Interior. The four total $125,098.

Contract 140L6326F0017, worth $41,025 for the UTV, runs Sept. 18 through Oct. 30. A day earlier the same company was awarded $41,480 for snowmobiles for the Eastern Interior Field Office, through Dec. 31. Both follow two earlier contracts to the same company, $23,404 for an EIFO all-terrain vehicle and $19,189 for an EIFO snowmachine, awarded Sept. 11 and Sept. 8, a short run of purchasing by the field office across 11 days.

All four were competed, three drawing one offer.

The field office manages 6.5 million acres in east-central Alaska, in the traditional territories of the Tanana, Tanacross, Upper Tanana, Hän, and Gwich'in peoples. Angela Yemma is acting field manager.

BLM lists more than 200 abandoned mine sites in Alaska, most from placer mining in stream valleys, washing gravel for gold, with many showing impaired wildlife habitat and stream function. A 2008 Government Accountability Office report put the number of abandoned mine sites on BLM land in Alaska at roughly 6,000. The 200 are inventoried sites; the 6,000 a 1996 estimate BLM said includes sites it may not manage.