(1/10) Director of Public Works Joseph Birch introduced bids for replacement of the Discovery watermain at the January Town Council meeting. Discovery, a community outside of Walkersville Town proper, utilizes the Town's water services with additional fees even though it is not technically in Town. The pipes in Discovery are old and the last five water line breaks have been within Discovery, thus putting them at the front of the repair list. An estimated 600 homes would be affected by the replacement process.
Replacing a water main is a large project because it first involves installing a temporary bypass that keeps water flowing to residents during the repair period. Machinery is brought in to excavate a trench in the location of the old water main, tear out the old pipes and replace them with new pipes. Everything is then tied back into the water system and finally the residents are put on the new line.
When large projects like the Discovery or Spring Gardens water main replacement are planned, it is customary to request bids from competing companies. Having at least three bids allows the Town to choose the best price and service for their needs. In the case of the Discovery replacement, three companies attended the pre-bid meeting but only one company, Daft-McCune-Walker, offered a bid of $380,000 to draw up plans and to get the relevant permits. The same company also did the Spring Garden Estates water main replacement. The Council asked the bidding contractors to design the project in phases. The lone bidder gave an estimate of a cost of $1.5 million over a six-phase process.
Commissioner Tom Gilbert asked, "how do we find out if this is our best option when we only received one bid?" Birch pointed out that the lone bid could be accepted as is or the Town could go through the pre-bid process again to try and get more bids. Town Manager Sean Williams said that Discovery is a substantially larger project than Spring Garden Estates but based on what was done and the cost to do a water main replacement there, the price is comparable.
Commissioner Gary Baker agreed with Gilbert about the reluctance to accept one bid without having anything to compare it to. The Council decided to wait for their next meeting where they could view and compare the estimates from the Spring Garden Estates project before voting to accept the work bid. In the meantime, they plan to ask other municipalities as well as the Town engineer for additional recommendations for a project of this size.
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