Lagoon bids come in high

Two years ago, funding was in place and plans made for the mandatory upgrades to Moorcroft’s sewer lagoon west of town, with the only issue to be addressed before advertising the work for bid being the final permit from DEQ. That agency has just recently approved the work to be done and the request for bids was subsequently made public.

Only one bid was offered at several hundreds of thousands of dollars over the allocated federal grant funding from Rural Development.

“We have talked to the funding agency,” says HDR’s Heath Turbiville, “They told us that they would like to see [the project] rebid and, if bids are still high, they will see what they can do to help with getting more grant money.”

He explains, though, that there is a limit to this funding avenue: “There is some room between the percentage of grant funding that the town has right now and the maximum amount of grant funding, but it’s not going to be [the amount of the bid].”

Members of the council, staff, HDR Engineering and sole bidder RCS Construction of Rapid City SD, met last Tuesday afternoon to discuss possible options to bring the cost of the work in-line with the funding available to the town.

While the exact amount of the RCS bid was not released, owner RC Scull and associate Evan Walterman assured the assemblage that they had approached several subcontractors for each stage of the project to ensure the best value and prices for Moorcroft. Scull also declared the proficiency of RCS in this operation.

“We do a lot of water and waste water [projects], about 90% of the work in western South Dakota,” stated Scull. “This is what we do; we’re good at it.”

Of the two “big ticket” components that may be negotiable, according to RCS, one is stabilization of the banks of the cells; the current bid is for the cost includes hauling an estimated 5000 tons of rock, bringing that cost alone to $220,000. According to RCS, a discount of approximately $100,000 is possible if there is enough viable material on site to be reused, including the large slabs of concrete that could be crushed.

However, even if this is an option, there will be the cost of removing the choking vegetation and other smaller costs that could mitigate that possible $100,000 savings to the town.

The second high end cost at approximately $800,000 is the sludge removal. Scull advised the council that if they can find a location within a half mile of the lagoon to deposit the solid waste, that would be worth another $100,000 savings.

“The biggest thing with that,” Walterman said, “is that within that half mile, they can set up pumps and piping versus when you go over that [two miles] and it has to go in a truck, that drives the cost up substantially.” This option, again can cost the town on other fronts.

After further discussion, RCS agreed to rebid the lagoon project if the town chooses to follow the preference of Rural Development; however, as Scull explained, “Our sub and supplier numbers were way beyond what your estimate was so, if you rebid this, you’re going to have to cut stuff or find a lot more funding.”

Mayor Dick Claar later said that the town will speak with Rural Development next “to see what their perspective is on it”. Within the next couple of regular meetings, the governing body expects to make their decision to reject this bid and advertise again with adjusted specifications in the hope that more contractors will bid or perhaps explore the possibility of phasing the project in an effort to manage the higher-than-expected costs.

As to a deadline for the lagoon to be updated, the mayor said that, while the DEQ would probably like to see the work done “sooner than later”, there is currently no set time for completion.