Elburn sewage plant work bids much higher than expected
Improving Elburn's sewage treatment plant will cost as much as 47 percent more than village officials expected.
The village's consulting engineer estimated in 2013 the construction work could be done for $6.6 million, but warned the board in early August that bids could come in higher due to market conditions.
The low bid was for $9.6 million, from Whitaker Construction and Excavating.
Including a 3 percent contingency and engineers' fees, and the cost goes to $10.92 million, according to a village memo.
Some of the cost difference can be seen in the unit prices for materials. For example, a 36-inch underground sanitary sewer pipe, was estimated at $170 a foot, but the lowest price offered on that was $1,175 a foot.
The village board will discuss the bids at a special meeting at 6:45 p.m. Monday at village hall.
Village officials have been planning the work for at least a decade.
"It is something that we have to do," Village President Dave Anderson said. And it is not related, he said, to the village's population growth. The work includes installing a new clarifying tank that has twice the capacity of the current clarifying tanks; a pumping station; putting in two new aerobic digesters; installation of an automated large-item screening system; and upgrading a current manual bar screen to automatic. Currently, a village worker must go down about 20 feet in a single-man tunnel to operate the manual bar screen, Anderson said, which he said is dangerous.
The work also includes installing phosphorus removal equipment, to meet recent federal antipollution standards.
The monthly sewer user charge will be increased to repay the loan the village will take out for the project from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, going from $2.80 per 100 cubic feet of water to $7.02 by May 1, 2017. There is a proposal to increase it even more.
Four companies bid on the project.
And the project could cost even more if the IEPA doesn't close on the loan by Sept. 30. Starting Oct. 1, the interest rate on IEPA loans goes up from 1.995 percent to 2.25 percent. On an $8.5 million loan, that would cost the village another $257,526 over 20 years. The village plans to use some money it has saved up to pay for part of the work.