Sewer Project Update

In an effort to keep our membership updated on the status of the sewer project around Ballston Lake, we have included a summary of current activity with the sewer committee. We are trying to provide the most up to date information on this very important topic. We have invited town supervisor Tim Scerpanic and sewer committee representative Bill Goslin to speak at our annual meeting. Please plan to attend in order to get the most current information and to have questions answered.

As many of you have seen in the local newspapers the sewer bids were opened on Jan 30th and were higher than anticipated. The low bid turned out to have a significant math error and was withdrawn by the vendor. The other two bids were millions of dollars higher. (details are posted on the Town website). The committee has been actively working to understand why there were fewer bids than expected
and why the bids were much higher than our engineering estimate. Meetings have been held with two of the bidders and discussions with some of the non-bidders. From this effort a list of suggestions was generated for changes to our bid requirements that could reduce the project’s cost. Several potential contractors told us that the project bid as a single project was too large for them.

The project engineer was tasked with creating a new bid document incorporating those changes that were deemed practical and breaking the project up into several sub projects that could be built by different contractors. The team is evaluating what might be the most effective timing in the contractors’ business cycle to put the new bid out.

An effort is also underway to evaluate options for applying for additional grant funding to offset the
potential higher than expected costs. Discussions were held with the Environmental Facilities Corporation
to review potential additional grants. One grant request is currently being written and several more are
likely.