Months ago, the Morgantown Utility Board warned it was bidding its forthcoming Cheat Lake Wastewater Treatment Plant project in a feeding frenzy of a market fueled by a Dec. 31 deadline to obligate billions of American Rescue Plan Act infrastructure dollars nationwide.
The results bear that out.
After extending the bid window by a month to accommodate interested contractors, MUB opened bids on Oct. 22.
On Oct. 23, it went back to the drawing board.
General Manager Mike McNulty said the engineer’s estimate for construction, including contingency costs, was $30,859,400.
The low bidder, Mele & Mele & Sons, of Braddock, Pa., came in at $39,630,000. The only other bid, from Triton Construction, was north of $48.6 million.
“So, on Oct. 23, we had a meeting with the West Virginia Water Development Authority and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to discuss the bid overrun and receive guidance on how to proceed,” McNulty said. “We were advised at that time that very little grant dollars would be available to backfill the overbid, and their suggestion was we needed to go back and look at the project and see what we could take out through the value engineering process.”
The end result of that, MUB Communications Director Chris Dale explained, is primarily the elimination of upgrades to both the Whites Run Lift Station and the Greystone Lift Station from the project.
Even so, Dale said that work will have to be done at some point in the future.
The plant upgrades will increase the facility’s capacity from 750,000 gallons to 1.75 million gallons per day.
McNulty said MUB took the cost-engineered project back to the WVWDA, which agreed to increase its ARPA contribution to the project from $6,750,000 to $8,050,000. The size of the loan to be taken through the West Virginia DEP State Revolving Fund has been adjusted up to $33.8 million. MUB is contributing $3,535,147 to the project and there is an additional $165,000 in grant dollars committed, meaning there is a total of $46,050,147 worth of financing in hand.
The bid awarded to Mele & Mele & Sons is for $36,038,742.
Despite never working with the contractor before, Assistant General Manager Rich Rogers said MUB is comfortable with the company’s experience with projects of this type and size.
Further, McNulty said, there is a possibility that the portions of the project removed due to cost could find their way back in.
“We have a good project. We think some of the items we may be able to get back into the project as we go along because we do have contingency dollars. So, if those dollars are not used up for any other purpose, we’d have those dollars available,” McNulty said.
Financing for the project is being supported through a 100% sewer rate increase for Cheat Lake customers. That increase takes effect Nov. 29.