LAKE COUNTY — A $533,000 amendment to a contract for engineering services for three county-managed water systems underwent further scrutiny by the Lake County Board of Supervisors Tuesday after it was tabled at the board”s Jan. 5 meeting.
The amendment to a 2005 contract for approximately $300,000 contained improvements to water systems in Kono Tayee, North Lakeport and Spring Valley. The board removed proposed improvements to the Spring Valley water system from the amendment in order to send the improvements out to bid. The engineering firm, CH2M Hill, was also asked to cut 10 percent from the costs it said were necessary to improve the other two water systems. The proposed amendment would have brought the contract value to more than $800,000.
“This is such a large amount, we really felt that we needed more information,” chairman Ed Robey said. CH2M Hill project manager Jerry Dean gave a PowerPoint presentation detailing the proposed costs for each water system.
The bulk of the added expense was for a hydraulic study to build a new plant at the Robin Hill Water Treatment Plant, estimated to cost $252,000. With the developers who would fund a portion of the cost for the new plant in breach of a contract to put the money in a trust account, Dist. 4 Supervisor Anthony Farrington said asking CH2M Hill to do the study did not make sense.
“Plus, with a cold real estate market, there will be no building boom to pay for it,” Farrington said.
The cost to draw up plans and specifications for putting in 700 feet of pipe between the North Lakeport water system ? county service area (CSA) 21 ? and the City of Lakeport”s water system was estimated at $82,000. CH2M Hill proposed another $62,500 to design improvements at the pump station where water is drawn from Clear Lake and pretreated. The engineering firm will be back Jan. 19 to answer Farrington”s suggestion that the firm cut those costs by 10 percent.
“I”m looking at getting the best bang for the buck for ratepayers. If they (CH2M Hill) are not willing to work with us on pricing, it makes sense to put it up for bid to make it as competitive as possible to save the ratepayers money,” Farrington said.
The cost cited for improvements to Spring Valley”s water system, CSA 2, was $96,500. Spring Valley is under a moratorium on additional connections after concerns about capacity arose in the summer of 2006.
“The criteria for consultant selection is not the low bidder, especially with engineering firms, but expertise of the engineers. We obviously feel that CH2M Hill has considerable expertise, but what we don”t know is if there are others out there may have similar expertise at a better price,” Dist. 3 Supervisor Denise Rushing said.
CH2M Hill was asked to cut 10 percent from an estimated $40,000 to replace a water storage tank in CSA 13, Kono Tayee”s water system.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
