Title
Award of Bid No. IFB 22-27 for the Purpose of the White Rock Water Resource Reclamation Facility (WRRF) Construction Project in the Amount of $25,328,082.17 Including Bid Alternate A Plus Applicable Gross Receipts Tax, and a 9.8% Contingency in the Amount of $2,427,774.57 for a Total Construction Budget of $27,800,856.74.
Recommended Action
I move that Council approve the Award of Bid No. IFB 22-27 to RMCI, Inc., for the Purpose of the White Rock Water Resource Reclamation Facility (WRRF) Construction Project in the Amount of $25,328,082.17 including bid alternate A plus applicable gross receipts tax, and a contingency in the amount of $2,427,774.57, for a total construction budget of $27,800,856.74.
Utilities Manager Recommendation
The Utilities Manager and staff recommend approval of the project as presented.
Board, Commission, or Committee Recommendation
The Board of Public Utilities reviewed this request at their regular meeting of December 15th and unanimously recommends approval of the project as presented.
Body
In 2004 (17 years ago) the DPU had two aging wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) that were violating their respective permits. The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) expressed concern about these aging plants and worked with DPU to develop a long-range plan to improve the situation to where the DPU would reach full compliance with all permit requirements at both WWTP's. The DPU realized that the wastewater fund could not adequately fund, nor could the DPU customers endure the rate increases, necessary to replace both WWTP's at the same time. The Bayo Canyon WWTP was in the worst shape with the worst environmental record and so the DPU selected that WWTP replacement project first and executed a project to replace that WWTP. Initial bids for the Los Alamos (LA) WWTP project were significantly above the engineer's estimate and the initial bids were rejected and the WWTP was re-designed. The second round of bids came in slightly higher than the original bids and the second bid for a re-designed scaled down WWTP was awarded. The new LA WWTP was constructed and came on-line in 2007.
At the same time the project for replacement of the LA WWTP was moving forward a plan was developed to delay the replacement of the White Rock (WR) WWTP. This plan proposed minimal investment to keep the WR WWTP operating for as long as possible while minimizing permit violations to the greatest practical extent. Investment into the WR WWTP during this interim 10-year period was to be kept to a minimum since the WR WWTP did need replacing and any investment into the existing WR WWTP would essentially be a "throw away" investment when the WR WWTP was eventually replaced. A 10-year plan was developed with the intent to execute a project to have a new WR WWTP constructed and operating in the year 2017. The existing WR WWTP was designed using 1960's technology that could not be enhanced or converted adequately to the meet the increasingly stringent permit requirements being promulgated by NMED. NMED has not increased the permit requirements at the WR WWTP contingent up the DPU’s commitment to planning and working toward funding of the WR WWTP replacement project. In anticipation of the 2017 start of the WR WWTP replacement project the DPU commissioned a Preliminary Engineering Report that compared multiple types of WWTP technologies. The completed Report determined that the current proposed approach was not only the lowest construction cost but the lowest operation and maintenance cost type of plant.
The wastewater fund, in 2017, was not yet in adequate financial shape to completely fund the WR WWTP replacement project; and so, the 10-year plan was extended an additional 6 years. This new 16-year plan did require some "throw away" investment into the WR WWTP just to keep it running. The NMED, during this extension of the original plan, renewed the WR WWTP discharge permit once again without revising the permit requirements again with the knowledge that DPU was continuing to work toward a viable solution to replace the WR WWTP as soon as feasible. Everything was proceeding per the revised plan until two unrelated and extremely impactful events occurred. The COVID pandemic hit and now, two years into the pandemic, construction supply chains have been seriously disrupted and construction labor availability is very limited. Furthermore, severe weather events (hurricanes and flooding) have caused severe manufacturing disruptions and material cost increases for materials directly related to a WWTP project: steel, aluminum, copper, wood, pipe, and pipe appurtenances. Bid costs for all recent DPU capital projects have been coming in at 50 to 100% above original estimates in the past year.
Attempting a re-design to cut costs while still building an operational WWTP is not really feasible because an extensive value engineering effort was completed as the first step in the final design of the new WR WWTP. This value engineering effort centered on keeping the costs for the new WWTP as low as possible. The selection of using Oxidation Ditch technology, from the Preliminary Design Report effort, ensures costs are kept to a minimum. Additional steps developed in the value engineering effort that became a part of the final design were incorporating the existing structures into the current final design, instead of building all new structures, while maintaining the operational capabilities of the existing WWTP during construction of the new plant. Every existing building and major concrete basin of the existing WWTP will be incorporated into the new plant (with modifications and upgrades): some right away and some saved for future re-use as the non-potable system in White Rock is expanded and additional NP water storage is required thereby saving the DPU those future construction costs. Besides designing in the re-use of every building and major basin into the new WWTP, another innovative approach that the design team undertook was the pre-bidding, evaluation, and selection of all major equipment components. Equipment for the Oxidation Ditch, Secondary Clarifiers, Ultraviolet Disinfection, Tertiary Filtration, Bio-solids De-watering and Digester Mixing Pumps were all pre-selected with guaranteed prices months before the bidding of the new WR WWTP. Some minor time related cost adjustments occurred for this equipment, but they were small, and the design team feels that this process did help control costs for this portion of the project.
Two bids were received on October 11th and only one of these bids was responsive. RMCI, Inc is the responsive bidder with a base bid of $23,515,133.25 plus $1,719,544.12 of NMGRT for a total base project amount of $25,234,677.37. There were five additive bid alternates labeled A thru E. Staff recommends approving only bid alternate A in an amount of $87,040.00 plus $6,364.80 NMGRT for a total construction bid alternate A cost of $93,404.80. This bid alternate is for asphalt paving of 2,950 SY of internal plant driving areas. Asphalt surfacing of the plant site, in lieu of gravel surfacing, will reduce the maintenance costs required to maintain the plant site and will enable the WWTP staff to keep the plant site looking clean during NMED inspections and reduce dust. Bid alternates B thru E consist of two basic options that can comfortably be deferred into the future: 1) Demolition of equipment in existing WWTP basins with some minor piping modifications that allow for future NP water storage; and 2) Off-site grading to better protect the WWTP site from storm water runoff erosion damage that can be accomplished using in-house forces and equipment. The total recommended base bid, plus bid alternate A project cost is $23,602,173.25 plus $1,725,908.92 NMGRT for a total bid construction project cost, including NMGRT, of $25,328,082.17. A 9.76% project contingency amount of $2,472,774.57 is also recommended by staff.
RMCI, Inc. has an extensive history of delivering high-quality construction projects in Los Alamos County. Throughout the bidding phase, RMCI was highly motivated and diligent in analyzing all project details, requiring over thirty points of clarification that all resulted in bid addenda. All bidding requirements were met with a high level of satisfaction to the evaluation committee, and the complex bidding line items were completed with no errors. It is the opinion of staff, with concurrence from the NMED Construction Programs Bureau, that RMCI will perform satisfactorily and deliver a successful project.
Alternatives
Keeping the existing WR WWTP operating for an additional extended period is not feasible because the plant continues to violate the discharge limits required by the NMED permit. The new Draft NPDES permit for the White Rock Plant mandates that the new plant be placed online three years after the permit goes into effect in February of 2022. Also, rebidding the project is not advised since there is a planned increase in state wage rates required for the project.
Fiscal and Staff Impact/Planned Item
The WRRF is a replacement wastewater facility and will not require a change in staffing levels. Incorporated County of Los Alamos Ordinance No. 712, increased the loan amount to Thirty Million Dollars ($30,000,000.00) with New Mexico Environment Department for the NMED Project CWSRF 083 under the same terms and conditions set forth for the original loan agreement. Please refer to Attachment B for the total project costs.
Attachments
A - WR WRFF Construction Plans
B - Total Project Costs