Warren set to award wastewater bid

After bids came in millions too high, portions of $20 million project could be scaled back

By Ted Hayes
Posted 3/15/18

A sizable portion of Warren’s $20 million wastewater treatment plant upgrade project may go unfunded for now, as the Warren Town Council prepares to award a bid for the project at next Tuesday’s …

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Warren set to award wastewater bid

After bids came in millions too high, portions of $20 million project could be scaled back

Posted

A sizable portion of Warren’s $20 million wastewater treatment plant upgrade project may go unfunded for now, as the Warren Town Council prepares to award a bid for the project at next Tuesday’s monthly meeting.

Town officials have known for years that the plant needed substantial upgrades to satisfy DEM environmental and health regulations, and voters overwhelmingly approved the $20 million project (approximately $18 million plus another 10 percent in contingencies) in November 2016.

However, town officials were surprised late last year after the first round of bids for the project came between $25 million and $26.5 million.

After those first bids came in too high, town officials threw them out and and re-bid the project early this year. Two bids have since come in, the lowest of which, approximately $13 million, was submitted by Hart Engineering of Cumberland.

However, that number does not include everything town officials want to see.

John Himlan, a project manager with Woodard and Curran who has helped the town plan the ambitious project, said potential bidders were asked to bid on a “base” project that includes everything required by the DEM, as well as four “alternates,” or additional work above and beyond that base.

While the first three alternates would add a collective $1 million to that $13 million base cost, the fourth — upgrades to the plant’s sludge handling equipment — would add another $5 million, bringing the project without contingencies to approximately $19 million. That puts the project beyond the town’s budget.

The next step for the council, he said, is to figure out what to do about those sludge upgrades.

“It’s obviously dependent on what the council wants to do,” he said Thursday.

Though Warren's sludge processing capabilities will remain without the planned upgrades, Mr. Hilman said the town's equipment is aging and in the wake of the bid, the town should next address how to accomplish those upgrades, perhaps using some of the money left over from the $14 million base and first three alternates to “see if we could get similar goals."

In any case, he said, the main driver of the project — compliance with DEM health and environmental regulations — would be satisfied regardless of whether the sludge upgrades are included in the project.

“All of that (DEM compliance) is still in the project,” he said, as are improvements that account for the future impact of climate change and resultant flooding.

“The bids came in where we had thought they would this second time, so we were happy about that,” he said.

If all goes as planned and the council awards the bid Tuesday, Mr. Himlan said Hart could potentially start its work this coming Spring.

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