JEFFERSON — Mr. Excavator, a Kirtland company, will build the Austinburg Sanitary Sewer Project.

During Tuesday’s agenda meeting, Ashtabula County commissioners Peggy Carlo and Daniel Claypool approved Mr. Excavator’s $2,292,231.74 bid as the lowest and best of the four bids received for the long-needed project.

Commissioner Joseph Moroski, who is recovering from a medical procedure and could not attend the meeting, concurred with the vote, said President Carlo.

Larry Meaney, the county’s director of environmental services, said the project is under a tight time constraint because of the federal stimulus money that is funding $825,000 of the project. Everything must be finalized by early February to qualify for the assistance.

Meaney said he was pleased with the low bid, which was just a few dollars shy of the $2.3 million price tag tossed around since June, when commissioners settled on the system design.

“We want to thank all the construction firms who bid on this very important project,” Carlo said in a prepared statement. “Back in June, we provided an opinion of construction costs at $2.3 million, and we hit that target.”

Bids to build the gravity-fed system ranged up to $3,581,333.50. Carlo expressed disappointment that the project could not be awarded to an Ashtabula County firm.

The project calls for construction of about 9,700 linear feet of PVC gravity pipe and another 5,000 linear feet of main pipe, a pre-cast pump station and other auxiliary improvements in the project area, which is the intersection of routes 45 and 307, Industrial Drive and Mill, Chestnut, Betts and Maple streets.

The project hinges on a loan from the Ohio Water Development Authority, which will now get the paperwork.

“The loan should be approved by mid- to late-January,” said Claypool. “At that time, a pre-construction meeting will be set with the contractor, probably by mid-February. Depending on the weather, construction could commence by late February or early March.”

“We are fortunate to have reached this point and kept the $1.9 million in grant funds for the project intact,” Moroski said in a prepared statement. “It is very important that we meet the EPA’s schedule as well. A December 2010 ‘substantial completion’ will keep us within the mandated schedule of compliance.”

Round 21 of the Ohio Public Works is providing $349,900 to the project; another $124,700 is coming from the township’s application to round 23. The Army Corps of Engineers is providing $655,000 in addition to the $825,000 in federal stimulus.

Assessments will pay for the balance. The assessment amount is set at $43 per linear foot, but Meaney said that could be reduced once the final numbers are run. That won’t happen until mid-2011 and assessments won’t appear on tax bills until 2012.

The project addresses a long-standing issue of non-functioning septic systems in the area and resulting contamination of Coffee Creek and water wells. A study in the 1980s showed at least 55 of the 84 homes in the “village” area had non-functioning septic systems.

In late 2005, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency ordered construction of sanitary sewers. The project was to be completed by Dec. 1, 2008, but residents worked with officials on the local, state and federal level to bring down the cost and extend the completion deadline.

The original assessment estimate was around $140 a foot.