Worldwide industrial services company Harsco Corporation announced the signing of a new multi year environmental services contract valued at more than USD 50 million to handle the metal recovery and on-site removal of decades old slag stockpiles left behind by a former steel manufacturing plant at Gadsden in Alabama.

Under the contract signed with overall site manager, CMC Inc, Harsco will install and operate an on site metal recovery and slag processing operation that will process an estimated three million cubic yards of slag materials still remaining from the former Gulf States Steel facility which filed for bankruptcy in 1999. Harsco will recover the slag's valuable metallic content and process the remaining material so that it can be responsibly recycled or placed in a landfill.

Harsco's operations, scheduled to begin in January 2010, are expected to create approximately 20 new jobs, all of which the Company plans to fill with local hires. The EPA has said it expects the project to be fully funded by the commercialization of the recovered metals, and considers it a potential model for future cleanup of similar sites throughout the United States.