Council accepts 14th St. Rehabilitation and Waste water Treatment changes

After closing the heated public comment portion on the rezoning and duplex amendments, the council moved on to some equally important developments. On March 22, the council accepted to pay DBA Smith Excavation $419K to rehabilitate 14th Street and nearly $640k to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant.

Council members were asked to approve DBA Smith Excavation's bid award for the 14th Street rehabilitation, which includes complete roadway construction between Commercial and Front Streets. DBA Smith Excavation's bid was the lowest out of 5 bids, with the engineer estimating $30k for the entire project.

Construction will begin near the end of May, 2022, and will last for approximately seven weeks.

Although 14th Street is one of the few access points to the wastewater treatment plant, this project should not overlap with the wastewater treatment center upgrades. The proposed upgrades are Phase One of the treatment plant upgrade project  which includes six change orders, changing the concrete supports, installing a new UV disinfection system, and an additional snow stop, upgrading the biological phosphorus removal system and some leftover electrical or physical repairs. The total amount for the orders cost around $640k. it has $528, 244 available budget but the USDA--RD funding package within the entire project contains a $741,242. 62 contingency fund. Most of the funds will go towards revamping the electrical conduits with the plant which will cost $346,962.42.