The U.S. Navy's engineering command in the Atlantic region has contracted three U.S. firms for natural resources monitoring and management in a vast swath of continental and coastal territories including the Caribbean.

Natural resources monitoring and management and related environmental planning is part of the defense program operated by the Navy's Naval Facilities Engineering Command.

Strategic plans in the region include preparing southeastern U.S. ports for larger ships expected to sail through the Panama Canal after the completion of extensive dredging operations in the waterway.

Tetra Tech Inc., one of three firms contracted by the U.S. Navy, said it will provide natural resources monitoring, management, compliance and related environmental planning as part of a $75 million indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity award. The two other companies included in the award were not immediately mentioned.

NAVFAC's area of responsibility includes the continental United States, Europe, southwest Asia and the Caribbean. The contract has one base year and four one-year options.

Tetra Tech has worked for NAVFAC Atlantic for the past five years under a previous contract. The company has headquarters in Pasadena and employs more than 14,000 people worldwide.

The new award for Tetra Tech follows a $20 million contract last week, with option years for an additional $3.5 million, with the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company LLC to perform environmental management services and provide construction oversight as part of the Miami Harbor Construction Dredging Project.

Miami is the first port in the southeastern United States to initiate dredging operations to expand its capacity to accommodate the larger vessels anticipated from the expanded Panama Canal. The expansion of the ports' capacity is seen as crucial to the future naval operations as well as mercantile fleets in the area.

Tetra Tech's scientists will provide environmental management and quality control oversight for the transplantation of seagrasses, relocation of corals and monitoring of existing seagrass beds, coral reefs and sediment during dredging. There also are plans to build new artificial reefs and seagrass beds from the dredged material.

Tetra Tech is working with Brazilian organizations Encibra and TECAM to help improve the estuaries of Santos and Sao Vicente in Brazil's Sao Paulo state.

The Japanese International Cooperation Agency hired the consortium to verify the effectiveness of the improvements made by the Sanitation Agency of Sao Paulo state to its wastewater and treatment networks.

Brazil has embarked on a major urban regeneration program and has reinforced the civilian works with an ambitious government plan for improving naval mobility throughout its vast network of canals, rivers and coastal areas.