City of Powell River Council approved contracts for the last three pieces of equipment for the consolidated wastewater treatment plant that had been put out to bid.
At the December 17 council meeting, council voted unanimously for three recommendations to let contracts, which are the final ones for construction of the plant. Total value of the contracts is $2,663,695.21, plus GST.
The first contract for ultraviolet equipment was awarded to Xylem Canada Company in the amount of $658,452.35, plus GST.
Councillor George Doubt said the contracts will provide essential equipment and these purchase commitments were required before final design of the plant can be completed and construction on the main part of it can start.
Mayor Dave Formosa said in the last month, councillors have been passing resolutions because any purchase valued at more than $500,000 has to go before council. Purchases of less than $500,000 can be approved at the staff level.
“We’ve spent a number of millions already,” said Formosa.
Councillor Cindy Elliott said the three items came to the city’s committee of the whole meeting on December 15 and councillors learned at that meeting that all were within or lower than the budgeted amount. Manager of engineering services Nagi Rizk confirmed that.
Council then reviewed a contract to Aerzen Canada for aeration blowers for bioreactors and digesters in the amount of $711,025.70, plus GST.
Doubt said in speaking with engineers in charge, there was some negotiation around this request for proposals that resulted in considerable cost savings because of the way these contracts are arranged.
“I want to thank the people involved for doing that,” said Doubt. “They have managed to keep that in budget.”
Doubt said procurements had come quickly from committee of the whole to council to speed up the process of getting the final design completed as fast as possible once approved.
The final contract went to Ovivo Inc. in the amount of $1.294,217.16, plus GST, for digester aeration equipment.
Doubt said now that these three final contracts have been awarded, the final design process can go ahead.
“I think that is going to happen in short order,” he added.
Rizk said the city is almost ready to put out its tenders for the main contract for construction of the consolidated wastewater treatment plant.
“Hopefully, in a week or two, we’ll be ready to put that out,” said Rizk.
He said he wanted to clarify that all contracts for required equipment were posted on BC Bid, but the next one for the big construction contract will not be. He said there has been a prequalification process with potential contractors. The city received interest from seven firms, which are “pretty much the top seven in North America.”
“We’ve met each one of them,” said Rizk. “There were also site visits from each one of them, and because of the pandemic we had to schedule them individually. We had sessions over three days with the contractors who came from all over.
“We interviewed them and checked on the references, and it was a very tough decision to shortlist to three. So now we have three qualified contractors and we will be directly sending them the tenders.”
Rizk said the last he heard the tender document was about 1,100 pages in length. He said it will be compiled electronically, into a thick, very technical document. Rizk said he believes the tender will be open until mid-February, so there will be about two months of preparation for the bidders.
“That will give us about a month to evaluate and award, and hopefully by early spring, we’ll break ground,” said Rizk.
Councillor Jim Palm said it’s important for the public to know these companies are some of the biggest and best in the business, which is good news for the bidding process.
Elliott asked Rizk to outline prospects for local contractors to participate in the project.
Rizk said all three contractors have received a list of all the local contractors.
