Hollister
– Five companies have already submitted bids for the second
phase of the Hollister Wastewater Treatment Project, but city
staffers are recommending that the City Council reject all bids and
seek out new ones.
Hollister – Five companies have already submitted bids for the second phase of the Hollister Wastewater Treatment Project, but city staffers are recommending that the City Council reject all bids and seek out new ones.
Shimmick Construction Company, the second-lowest bidder for construction of the seasonal storage ponds, filed a protest with the city saying that the lowest bid, from C. Overaa and Company, seemed unrealistic. Because of the protest, the council delayed a vote on the contract Monday.
City Engineering Manager Steve Wittry said city staffers would have found the problem even if Shimmick hadn’t complained.
“We would have done it whether Shimmick said something or not,” he said.
The big issue is dirt, Wittry said. Whoever builds the ponds will need to dispose of 190,000 cubic yards of unearthed soil. The builder can either sell the soil or dispose of it at one of the future sprayfield sites, but the initial bid specifications didn’t set a deadline for making the decision.
“If they (switch) next summer, that’s going to be a huge problem for us,” Wittry said.
The initial bid request’s vague language led to wildly different cost estimates, he added. Overaa estimated that soil disposal would cost 1 cent per cubic yard, while Shimmick estimated it would cost $9 per cubic yard.
The City Council will consider rejecting all bids and readvertising for the project at a special meeting Monday. That means the contract won’t be awarded until Aug. 6, but the ponds still should be finished on time, Wittry said.
The new bid request will offer more specifics about soil disposal and set a firm deadline, he said. Wittry estimated the new bids, which could come from the same companies, will fall between Overaa’s bid of $8.7 million and Shimmick’s bid of $13.6 million.
“I would anticipate that it will be somewhere in the middle,” he said.
The city’s estimated cost for the ponds, which will store treated wastewater during the rainy season, was $20 million.
City Councilwoman Pauline Valdivia said she’ll be pressing Wittry for more details.
“There’s a lot of questions, and I hope we can get the answers at Monday’s meeting,” she said. “I don’t want it to get stalled.”
City Manager Clint Quilter has said Hollister must complete all three phases of the wastewater treatment project before the state lifts the city’s building moratorium. The city plans to complete the project by December 2008. All five of the initial bidders have told Wittry that even with the three-week delay, the timeline is still feasible, he said.
Overaa is already building the project’s first phase, the wastewater treatment plant, and the city is preparing an environmental impact report for the third phase, the sprayfields that will dispose of treated wastewater.
“We’re looking good right now,” Wittry said. “Barring any extreme weather patterns, there shouldn’t be any problem (meeting the deadline).”
