Local News
Austinburg sanitary sewer funding under review
JEFFERSON — Bids for the construction of the Austinburg Township sanitary sewer improvements have been laid on the table for review.
The project, mandated by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, will replace failing septic systems in the area of routes 307 and 45 with a gravity-feed system. The estimated cost of the project was set at $2.3 million last summer by CT Consultants.
Larry Meaney, director of the county’s Department of Environmental Services, said he was happy to see the lowest of the four bids received to come in at just under the estimated project cost. The low bid was from Mr. Excavator of Kirtland and is for $2,292,311.74.
“We’re right on the button,” he said.
C.I.R., Inc., a Geneva firm, had the second-lowest bid at $2,384,533. Fabrizi Trucking & Paving Co., a Valley City company, bid $2,747,655.25, and DiGioia-Suburban Excavating of North Royalton, bid $3,58,333.50.
Bids were received Wednesday.
Meaney anticipated bids from about a half-dozen firms. “There were more takers than bidders,” Meaney said, referring to the dozen firms that requested bid packets.
He suspects that projects funded by federal stimulus money, which is paying for a portion of the Austinburg work, are starting to fill contractor’s schedules for 2010, and thus reduced the number of bidders.
CT Consultants will examine each bid line by line to make sure the contractors did not overlook any aspect of the project. Meaney was encouraged by a cursory review of the bids because the contractors had taken note of the dewatering requirements of the project. A high water table in this portion of the township makes for difficult work that could affect the final cost.
“It’s tricky soil out there,” he said.
Once CT completes its review, commissioners can conditionally award the project. The next step is to go before the Ohio Water Development Authority for loan fund approval either Jan. 14 or 28, 2010.
“We’re going to get ourselves in on one of these meetings so we can have our project completely funded,” Meaney said.
Once that is done, the final award will be made to the contractor and a pre-construction meeting set.
Meaney said the project must be “substantially complete” by December 2010 to comply with the requirements of the EPA and funding sources.
The fact at least one of the bids was slightly under the project’s estimated cost should be encouraging to commissioners and affected residents, who will be assessed $43 per foot of frontage to pay for their share of the work. Commissioners will be on the hook for any costs above the assessment amount.
“It’s hats off to Shawn Aiken (water resources department manager for CT),” Meaney said. “It’s really hard to sit here and project out two, three years. It’s like hitting a dart board being moved from room to room.”
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