Authorize Emergency Contract Change Order or Amendment, in the amount of $2,096,600, to Agreement No. 22-19 with Odin Construction Solutions, LLC for the Knights Landing Mid-Valley Sites 9 & 10 Levee Improvements Project; adopt a related resolution with findings and a delegation of signature authority; and adopt a budget resolution using General Fund contingency to increase the Knights Landing Levee Capital Project budget by $123,000. (Potential general fund impact) (4/5 vote required) (Lindbo/Sabatini)

Background
On September 29, 2022, the County entered into Agreement No. 22-19 with Odin Construction Solutions, LLC to construct the Knights Landing Mid-Valley Sites 9 & 10 Levee Improvements Project.  This project involved the installation of two sections of shallow slurry cutoff walls between Levee Miles 2.75 and 3.25.  To install the walls, the levee was excavated (i.e., degraded) to remove the top one-third of embankment to prevent hydraulic fracturing of the levee during installation.  Work began in the Fall 2022 with levee excavation occurring from October 8 through 18, and wall installation occurring between October 19 and November 5.  The wall then required adequate time to settle prior to levee backfill and restoration which began December 15.  Under dry weather conditions the embankment was scheduled to be completed in 11 working days.  However, work had to be stopped after only a few working days due to weather conditions and saturated levee embankment materials.

Per the County's funding agreement with the California Department of Water Resources ("DWR") and expiration of the funds, all work must be completed by March 31, 2023, and fully closed out by June 30, 2023, which required construction to be completed in late 2022 or risk loss of State funding for these critical repairs.   A request has been made to extend the funding agreement expiration date, as well as reallocate budget between tasks, but DWR cannot guarantee the extension and encouraged work to be completed per the agreement deadlines.

Issue
Prior to completion of the emergency work that is the subject of this item, current levee elevations in the degraded sections were between 41 and 42 feet with design top of levee between 44 and 45 feet.  The highest stage recorded is on January 2, 1997, at 41 feet.  The 1% annual chance water surface elevation is 42.55 feet.  Although near-term forecasts show the Sacramento River elevating below these levels, the weather forecast remained active and wet though nine different Atmospheric River storm events.  The levee restoration work requires levee embankment material that meets current State and Federal standards which requires import from offsite sources, all of which have become saturated and inaccessible.  Additionally, the project stockpiled the existing levee material in the project staging area to be used in case of an emergency and/or for future projects.  However, the staging area is in a field between the Sacramento River levee and County Road 116B that is subject to seepage water accumulating between the levee and road making the site inaccessible over time during periods of inclement weather.  Seepage began to occur in areas downstream of the staging area and was anticipated to begin impacting the staging area in only a couple of days leaving a short window (i.e., 4-7 working days) to access the available levee material.  This resulted in the need for emergency work to restore the levee height.

Plan
On January 2, 2023, the Odin Construction Solutions was directed to mobilize specialized equipment to utilize the existing on-site material to reconstruct the levee to its design elevation.  On January 3, 2023, the Odin Construction Solutions was directed to line up 24-hour work.  This emergency work was completed under the force-account (time and materials) provisions of the contract specifications.  The emergency winterization of the levee was completed on January 9, 2023.  Additionally, the embankment installed would be temporary, and the project would be required to remove the temporary embankment and import specified levee embankment in Spring 2023, which will result in additional costs. 

Recommended Action
At this time, Staff is recommending that the Board of Supervisors authorize an Emergency Contract Change Order or Amendment, in the amount of $2,096,600, to Agreement No. 22-19 with Odin Construction Solutions, LLC for the Knights Landing Mid-Valley Sites 9 & 10 Levee Improvements Project.  The Emergency Contract Change Order or amendment will include funding for the following activities:
 

Activity	Est. Cost	Timing
Winterization activities to build up the levee	$1,290,700	Early January 2023
Remove temporary embankment	$805,900	Spring 2023

Cost estimates for the above activities were provided by the contractor and have been attached to this staff report as Attachment A.

Approval of an Emergency Contract Change Order or Amendment is necessary because although the degraded levee did not (prior to the emergency work) pose an imminent public safety risk from levee overtopping in the degraded areas, the successive storms forecast in early January created the potential for a loss of access to levee materials and and current long-term weather forecast provides significant uncertainty through the remainder of the winter months.  If the existing levee fill matieral access were to be cut off by seepage, the project would not have available resources on-site to restore the levee height and would be required to import useable material from an offsite source, if available, at a significantly higher cost.

In addition to authorizing the Emergency Contract Change Order or Amendment, staff is also requesting that the Board adopt two resolutions. The first resolution contains findings relating to the emergency need for the work that was recently completed, including findings affirming that competitive bidding was infeasible. The second resolution is a budget resolution increasing the Knights Landing Levee Capital Project budget by $123,000 to accommodate an increase in local cost share for the project.  Staff intend to continue to pursue FEMA and/or CalOES to the extent available, however there is a need to appropriate sufficient local resources to be able to pay for expenditures incurred that are associated with the Emergency Repairs. More information about this request can be found in the Fiscal Impact section of the staff report.

Natural Resources Division staff has collaborated with the Office of the County Administrator, the Department of Financial Services, and County Counsel, as well as the County’s contracted levee district engineer (MBK Engineers) on this item.

The original contract with Odin Construction Solutions, LLC was awarded out of a competitive bid process that occurred in Summer 2022. 

The Department confirms that the vendor has performed satisfactorily on the current agreement.