HUMBOLDT — A major retrofit to a sewage lift station will cost more than budgeted.
The winning bid for the work on lift station #3 was made by Hipperson Construction. The cost to the city will be $1.2 million. The original budget for the project was $1 million.
The retrofits will help prevent flooding after major rainstorms and allow the sewer system to serve an extra 1,748 people.
One of the causes for the increased cost was due to changes in the project. Now there will be a building upgrade to house a generator, a new manhole structure, and a polyurethane coating applied to the concrete surfaces of the wet well exposed to sewage which aims to extend the life of the station.
“I think by doing those things, now this is the time to do it rather than later, because the structure underground is going to remain,” Muench said. “This is something to add on top to improve it.”
Hipperson also said it would complete the project in 14 weeks, almost half the time it would take for the next fastest bid to complete the work. That caused some concern with the city’s consulting engineers if that was possible, due to question about how quickly they could get the components
“Our engineers went back to the company to make sure that was doable and they did come back with a little bit longer period of time,” Muench said.
The project is now estimated to take 19 weeks.
The tender for water main work was also awarded at the April 22 meeting, with the winning bid, at around $493,000 plus tax, going to Brockman Enterprises.
