Staff recommends the City Council award a construction contract for only Schedule I of the W.O. 19-21 WRF Influent Lift Station Project to RSCI in the amount of $5,291,000.00.

The W.O. 19-21: WRF Influent Lift Station project addresses the historical wastewater backwater condition at the front-end of the WRF.  This current backwater condition extends out into the major sanitary sewer interceptors that discharge into the WRF.  Long-term settling of solids in the interceptors reduces their capacity, generates corrosive H2S gas, and leads to costly O&M expenses. When operating, the new lift station will create a flow condition into the WRF that is free from backwater effects.  This free-flow condition, combined with newly steepened grades of the sewer interceptor pipes supplying the lift station, will increase the wastewater velocity in the interceptors, thus reducing the settling of solids.  Major features of the project include:

• installation of screw pumps with 40MGD total capacity with lift station expandability to accommodate increased future flow
• gravity flow into the WRF Headworks when the lift station is not operating which saves pumping electrical costs
• increased slope of the incoming interceptors, whereby increasing the flow velocity which allows for self-cleaning of the pipes

This project was advertised on November 6, 13, 20 and 27 and December 4 and 11 in the Yellowstone County News and on the City's website.  Bids were opened on December 15 and six bids were received.  RSCI submitted the lowest responsible bid.

City Council may:

• Approve award of W.O. 19-21: WRF Influent Lift Station to RSCI in the amount of $5,291,000.00 (Schedule I), or;
• Approve award of the project to RSCI in the amount of $5,634,000.00 (Schedule I + Schedule II); or
• Disapprove award of a construction contract and reject all bids.  If this project is not completed, the problem of reduced interceptor capacity and of solids settling in the interceptors will continue.  The cost to solve this problem and to continue cleaning the interceptors in the future will also increase.

The following bids were received:
 

Contractor	Schedule I	Schedule II	Total Bid
RSCI	$5,291,000.00	$343,000.00	$5,634,000.00
COP Construction	$6,482,660.00	$205,800.00	$6,688,460.00
Blue Sky Construction	$7,234,378.40	$760,855.67	$7,995,234.07
Western Municipal Construction	$5,536,068.00	$355,695.00	$5,891,763.00
Dick Anderson Construction	$5,466,250.00	$454,000.00	$5,920,250.00
KLE Construction	$7,448,400.00	$751,595.00	$8,199,995.00

Funds budgeted in FY21 for W.O. 19-21: Influent Lift Station and W.O. 20-01: Sewer Interceptor Replacement Project will be used for the RSCI contract. The budget allocated for the WRF Influent Lift Station is $3.9M.  During project design, it was determined that the grade of the 60-inch and 48-inch interceptors entering the existing siphon headbox that will divert flow to the lift station needed to be steepened to increase pipe cleaning flow velocity.  Staff coordinated with the project team working on the W.O. 20-01 design, and determined that the design and construction of the pipe lowering and the extension of a portion of the interceptors would be best accomplished by the lift station project. This design change increased the lift station project construction cost estimate but the budget for W.O. 20-01 will be used to meet the project cost. 

Bid Schedule II represents the cost to lower and extend the 48-inch interceptor to the project limits.  During bid review, staff determined that this work can be accomplished more cost effectively by W.O. 20-01, so Schedule II is not recommended for award.  RSCI is the low bidder for Schedule I and staff recommends that City Council award a contract to RSCI in the Schedule I amount of $5,291,000.00.  There are adequate funds between the two projects to award the contract.