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Bids for Warsaw’s sewer rehabilitation and replacement projects were opened Friday during the Board of Public Works and Safety meeting.
For the sewer replacement, bids included: $1,305,169.63 from G&G Hauling & Excavating, Warsaw; $1,319,000 from HRP Construction Inc., South Bend; and $1,006,257.01 from Selge Construction Co., Niles, Mich.
Bids for the lining of small diameter sewer piping were: $3,973,206 from Benchmark Construction, Barlett, Ill.; $3,491.935.20 from Insituform Technologies, Chesterfield, Mo.; $3,934,665.93 from IPR Great Lakes LLC, Detroit, Mich.; $3,313,874.50 from Layne Inliner LLC, Orleans; $3,367,772.55 from Michels Corporation, Brownsville, Wis.; $3,763,151.45 from Miller Pipeline, Indianapolis; and $3,386,609.75 from SAK Construction LLC, O’Fallon, Mo.
The last set of bids, for lining of large diameter piping, were: $3,850,145 from Benchmark Construction, Barlett, Ill.; $2,754,408.60 from Insituform Technologies, Chesterfield, Mo.; $2,573,121.50 from Kenny Construction Company, Northbrook, Ill.; $2,391.345.50 from Layne Inliner LLC, Orleans; and $2,091,618.45 from Michels Corporation, Brownsville, Wis.
After the meeting, Utility Manager Brian Davison explained, “It was broken into three projects. There’s sewer replacement, which is actually digging and replacing the sewer line underground. It’s spotted all over the town. It has to do with, anything that’s a 6-inch pipe or smaller is going to be replaced with an 8-inch, which is standard size now.”
City Engineer James Emans said almost all of those runs are part of the 1899 sewer system.
The other two projects, Davison said, are sewer lining.
“So we’re not going to dig, and (the small diameter project is) anything under 15 inches (diameter). So, 15 inches down to the 8 inch,” he said.
The large diameter project is 18 inches and larger. “This is lining in place, not disturbing the road above. Just lining,” Davison said.
Emans explained the way the lining project will work.
“They put a material inside that’s a felt and they impregnate that felt with a resin so it goes in very flexible. They pressurize that with either water or air that pushes it out agains the pipe and then it bonds. The resin sets up and it becomes hard, and it actually becomes a structural element so you’re building a pipe inside a pipe using the existing pipe as a form,” Emans said.
He said all three projects are dealing with sewer pipes that the utility department feels are imminent failure.
“We’ve had major problems with cave-ins and other issues with our pipe. This isn’t all of the problems of the utility, these are just the runs of pipe that we feel are at the highest risk to fail at any given day,” Emans said.
Davison added that there’s a grading scale of 1 to 5 for the pipes, with a 5 being a failed pipe.
“All of these pipe are either 5’s or 1899 sewer pipe,”?he said.
As for when the work will begin, Emans said it will be after the first of the year.
“The lining work could be performed in the colder weather. The excavation work probably won’t initiate much before mid-March because they’re tearing up a lot of the roads to put the pipe in the ground and we’ll need the asphalt plants to be open to be able to do that,” he said.
Davison said it all is subject to adoption of a new rate ordinance by the city council which is expected to discuss the topic Monday and again on Nov. 20.
Emans said the lining contracts run 13 months, while the pipe replacement contract will run six months until December 2018.
“The good news is that this lining process does not disrupt much. Where they’re inserting this pliable product, they’ll have a little more spacing in the roadway but very little excavation is involved with that, so the disruption to the surrounding area during the lining projects should be minimal,” Emans said.
With the big diameter pipe project, it’s a bit different because of the larger size that’s being put in and locations, he continued.
“There’s a lot of pipe in downtown that’s being lined and replaced, and just as a utility I anticipate that we’ll get word out as we know schedules so that if a roadway needs to be totally closed it probably won’t be for a long period of time, like a day or two, but I could envision periodic closures of roadways, certainly when we’re replacing pipe. But most of those are a block or two at a time,” Emans said.
He said the city will know more in the spring when it gives contractors a notice to proceed and gets a construction schedule.
At a special city council meeting Oct. 27, the council approved moving forward a new proposed sewer rate ordinance to replace the one that was defeated 4-3 Oct. 16. The new proposal reduces a charge multi-family dwellings would pay, but leaves the city $100,000 per year short in revenue needed to cover proposed wastewater infrastructure expenses.
The city needs the rate change because it is looking at a $41 million sewer project, which includes $10.1 million in improvements to sewer lines and manholes, some of which are over 100 years old, in phase I. Phase II would be an expansion of the wastewater treatment plant, which is mandated by the state to be completed by 2020.
