Council approves two WWTF bids

By: 
Jason Ferguson

The City of Custer’s wastewater treatment facility project moved two steps closer to completion at the Oct. 17 meeting of the Custer City Council when the council unanimously awarded bids for two more phases of the project to the lowest bidder.
The bids, which are for the effluent force main construction as well as the transfer force main and lift station construction, were originally tabled at the council’s Oct. 3 meeting after they came in largely over engineer estimates. At that time, Trent Bruce of DGR Engineering, the company helping guide the city through the plant renovations, asked the council to table the bids to allow time to negotiate with low bidders to see if more money could be knocked off the total bid.
At the Oct. 17 meeting Bruce gave an update on those negotiations, which he said yielded around $450,000 and $500,000 in savings combined.
“I say negotiate—we were looking for better ways to get the same product,” Bruce said.
For the effluent force main bid that came in initially at $4,299,541.15, Bruce said $137,000 was negotiated out of the original bid, and a future change order will net another $237,000 in savings.
The low bid is now $4,162,691 (plus the pending change order), which is still over the initial engineer’s estimate of $3.07 million.
As for the transfer force main and lift station bid, Bruce said $7,000 was negotiated out of the original bid with low bidder RCS Construction of Rapid City, and another $90,000 will be saved through a future change order. That contract will now be $2,565,922, plus the pending change order. The engineer’s original estimate for that bid was $1.95 million.
Alderman Todd Pechota asked if there was any issue with accepting the higher bids in terms of the state’s funding assistance, with Bruce saying these projects are totally funded through the funding package the city received in April, although the city will have to go back to the state and ask for additional funding when bids are let and accepted for Submerged Underground Growth Reactor that is a part of the project. Bruce said funding for that project will need to be requested by the end of the year.
“The challenge of negotiating with your lowest bidder is you can’t change the scope of the work,” Bruce said. “You’re getting the same product, we just have to find better ways of doing it.”
Bruce added because of the current construction environment, the city is not the first entity to call the state with high bids and funding issues for projects.
Bruce added another thing DGR is monitoring is where the price total ends up as compared to where original bids were in April. Bruce said the city has saved between $1.5 million and $2.5 million since the initial lone bid for the project was wildly over estimates and the project was rebid in smaller phases.
“It’s taken a while to get there, but we think it’s worth it for your citizens,” Bruce said.
As far as other areas of the project, Bruce said Phase 1A of the project, which was the force main to the golf course, was finished last year and punch list items such as grading work, rock, grass, etc., were recently completed by the contractor.
Phase 1B, which is upgrades to the physical plant, is still in contract. An automatic transfer switch needed for the project was delayed due to supply chain issues, but should arrive within the next month, Bruce said.
Once the existing generator is replaced at the plant, the state will remove an underground fuel tank on the site, and some of the work that has fallen behind, such as the roof replacement, must still be completed. Bruce said the roof work should be done by the middle of November.
Bruce told the council the first load of pipe supplied by Core and Main of Rapid City through the approved procurement contract has arrived.
“You are now in the pipe supply business for a short while,” Bruce said.
Bruce said the SAGR system will be bid in April 2023, with construction likely to take place in 2024 to be completed by the end of that year. The cost for that portion of the project, Bruce said, will likely be around $5 to $6 million.
Bruce said the state will announce in March which funding applications were approved and for how much, and the details of the process will be discussed over the course of the next couple of months.
In other news from the Oct. 17 meeting, the council:
• Heard from KJ Johnson, who updated the council on the Hometown Hero banner project, which puts banners of military veterans on the poles downtown. Johnson said the price of the banners is being raised $10 to cover a rise in shipping costs.
Johnson said there are 43 of the banners sold at the present time, and there is room for more. She added the banners are lasting around seven years, when it was anticipated they may last for only three.
The banners are flown around July 4 as well as Veterans Day. A request to fly the banners Memorial Day was declined, as that day is for deceased veterans, and many of the veterans featured on the banners are alive and well.
The banners cost around $120, Johnson said.
• Heard from Kailey Snyder of Black Hills Council of Local Governments and Custer County emergency management director Steve Esser, who discussed the county’s hazard mitigation plan, and more specifically, the need to get it updated as soon as possible, as it expires Feb. 27.
Snyder said it would not be catastrophic to not get it renewed by the deadline, but the preference is to have it updated by Jan 1, and city information is needed for that to occur. The hazard mitigation plan is updated every five years and is required for FEMA funding.
The process includes two weeks of public comment and stakeholder meetings.
• Approved a contract with Tom Paisley of Lookout Plan + Code Consulting to complete plan reviews and do code consulting for the City of Custer. Commercial and residential projects will be 20 percent of the building permit free and code consulting will cost the city $75 per hour.

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