Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
The Sweet Home City Council last week awarded an $8.6 million contract to Pacific Excavation, Inc. to build a new water treatment plant.
In April, the city started a formal sealed bid process for construction of the new six-million-gallon plant west of 47th Avenue and north of Highway 20, northwest from the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District Foster Substation.
“The project has met all requirements and approvals from relevant state and federal agencies to date and is ready to proceed,” Public Works Director Mike Adams said.
The city planned to wrap up the contract process by the end of the month, engineer Ryan Quigley told the council. After a preconstruction meeting, most likely during the first week of June, the city will issue a notice to proceed, and the contractor will have 10 days to get started.
Once the city gets the contractor involved, Adams said, the city will set up a groundbreaking ceremony.
Councilor Jim Gourley and Mayor Craig Fentiman observed that this was probably the largest-cost single action the council has taken since they’ve been on the council. Fentiman joined the council in 1988.
The project is a huge undertaking that will address the city’s needs, City Manager Craig Martin said. “It’ll be a great facility. There’s no extra fluff in it.”
It will probably last longer than anyone sitting in the room during the council meeting, Martin predicted.
Fentiman said he was glad to see the cost come in just a little more than the engineer’s estimate.
Quigley said the engineer’s estimate was made about two months ago, and fuel prices have increased substantially since then, helping drive the cost up.
The new plant will tie into a water line that runs from Foster Dam across Wiley Creek to the new plant.
The city is replacing the water plant that was constructed in the late 1930s and remodeled and expanded in the 1960s. The existing plant cannot meet drinking water regulations, and it has structural issues, according to city officials.
About 10 years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency changed the rules regulating chlorine contact time with drinking water, requiring a longer contact time before the water reaches the first customer on the line, across the street from the plant on Ninth Avenue.
The city’s water treatment plant was incapable of meeting the new contact time requirement, requiring the city to begin sending quarterly letters to all water customers, warning of a possible health hazard.
OMI, Inc., which started operating the city’s water and wastewater treatment plants in December 2006, has automated the existing water treatment plant. OMI can run the automated water treatment plant 24 hours per day and slow down the production process, allowing longer chlorine contact times.
Since the automation, OMI has been able to meet the contact time regulation more than half the time and get close to the requirement almost all month.
With the new water treatment on line, the city will no longer need to send the letters.
The construction process will include a 17,000-square-foot building, including three 1,400-gallon-per- minute filter units; clear wells; backwash ponds; a holding pond and pump station; 2,000 feet of raw water lines; 3,150 feet of finished water lines; a 24-foot access road system; 1,000 feet of storm drainage lines; and 1,000 feet of sewer lines.
The city opened sealed bids from four contractors on May 8. Pacific was the apparent low bidder.
The city started the plant project in September 2006 with the installation of one 42-inch-high capacity raw water intake screen, 600 feet of above-ground 24-inch pipe and 4,600 feet of buried 30-inch pipe to deliver water from the lake to the plant.
The city is using a 5-acre property provided by Santiam River Development Company in exchange for the first right to purchase excess untreated water for its project, which is planned to include high-end homes in a natural setting. Santiam River Development would use the untreated water to fill its creeks and ponds, although the project is on hold until the secondary housing market turns around.
Present at the May 13 meeting were Jim Bean, Jim Gourley, Greg Mahler, Scott McKee Jr., Rich Rowley, Eric Markell and Mayor Craig Fentiman.
In other business, the council:
– Recommended approval of a liquor license for Bonnie and Stanley Badgley, who are reopening Midway Grocery, 3239 Main St.
– Adopted its “Vision 2013” statements, which were developed in visioning sessions earlier this year.