WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has awarded more than $18 million to two Sacramento, Calif., companies to develop the next phase of the SacramentoValleyNationalCemetery in Dixon, which opened in October 2006.
“We are pleased to continue development of this national shrine,” said Dr. James B. Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs. “Our goal is to provide the best possible service to the veterans of California as soon as we can – and we intend to meet that goal.”
Clark & Sullivan and Boward Brothers, both from Sacramento, were awarded $18.1 million for the construction contract. VA anticipates the project will be completed in the fall of 2011 and provide 10 years of burial services.
The expansion encompasses 60 acres and will include installation of 6,900 pre-placed crypts, approximately 4,900 conventional gravesites, as well as 8,000 columbaria niches and 5,200 in-ground cremain sites, both for cremation remains. Buildings will include two committal service shelters, a public information center, an administration building and a maintenance complex. An infrastructure system will provide irrigation, roads, utilities, signage and landscaping.
In the midst of the largest cemetery expansion since the Civil War, VA operates 125 national cemeteries in 39 states and Puerto Rico and 33 soldiers' lots and monument sites. More than three million Americans, including veterans of every war and conflict — from the Revolutionary War to the Global War on Terror — are buried in VA’s national cemeteries on more than 17,000 acres.
Veterans with a discharge other than dishonorable, their spouses and eligible dependent children can be buried in a national cemetery. Other burial benefits available for eligible veterans, regardless of whether they are buried in a national cemetery or a private cemetery, include a burial flag, a Presidential Memorial Certificate and a government headstone or marker.
Information on VA burial benefits can be obtained from national cemetery offices, from the Internet at http://www.cem.va.gov, or by calling VA regional offices toll-free at 1-800-827-1000. To make burial arrangements, call (800) 535-1117.
For information on the Sacramento Valley VA National Cemetery, contact the cemetery staff at (707) 693-2460.
