Hub Staff
Work on critical infrastructure projects are again underway as the Port Elgin standpipe construction is expected to continue over the summer.
Director of Infrastructure and Development Services Amanda Froese presented a report to council awarding K&L Construction Inc the nearly $2 million contract to replace the Port Elgin standpipe water tower April 23.
There was an element of surprise with the report as the lowest Request for Proposal (RFP) was almost double the 2018 budget amount of $1.2 million and some relief after much fine tuning saw the final amount reduced by almost $500,000.
This 1988 constructed standpipe has been problematic for staff and elected officials over the past eight years as it is barely surviving 40 years.
The 1988 standpipe base construction beside the 1904 version.
The report had been completed by Engineering Services Adam Stanley and in it he concluded that an option to delay and pursue a reconsidered construction project had merit and still it would require a new Environmental Assessment which could take up to five years to complete. In an effort to determine if this standpipe could survive an additional five years OCWA retained Watech Services Inc. at the beginning of April to complete another comprehensive inspection. Watech concluded the standpipe is in “generally poor to fair condition" and should perform satisfactorily for the next two years "without any significant maintenance.”
Ultimately the savings were found by Town staff, B.M. Ross and Associates working with a combined effort of the two firms who placed bids to construct the standpipe.
Some of these cost cutting measures included leaving the colour blue, similar to others in the area, instead of white (less $60,000), changing to the design of the mixing system (less $170,000), using the existing control building (less $70,000) and changing in the style of a fall arrest system (less $35,000).
Further amounts of $125,000 were deferred to other years which include taking down the existing standpipe, erecting a perimeter fence and painting a logo.
Finding additional funding sources proved equally challenging and Town staff completed this effort for the final cost at just under $2 million.
Stanley said construction should be close to finished by late fall leaving some site work for spring of 2020.
The new construction is designed for 50 years with minimal maintenance items being completed. As with any asset management plan, there are life extending maintenance components that can be completed at different points in time to extend the life expectancy to 80 plus years.
"It will always come down to the cost of those life extending measures versus full replacement value as to whether it is more cost effective to complete them," said Stanley.
1908 standpipe stood for 80 years.
New Port Elgin Standpipe on the rise.
