Clarksburg Sanitary Board approves pay applications as contractors request change orders for Phase 5 sewer work

The Clarksburg Sanitary Board approved a contractor pay application tied to Phase 5 of the long-term control plan and authorized payment of a Thrasher invoice while discussing several contractor change-order requests and newly discovered voids in downtown streets.

At a regular meeting, staff reported that the Phase 5 contractor has advanced up to the entrance of McDonald's on Pike Street and flagged a series of change-order requests, including one with roughly a 90% markup that the board and staff are negotiating. Staff said about $60,000 of a change-order request was for flowable fill installed at the direction of DOH (Department of Health) and that the board's contingency fund should cover the current requests while negotiations continue.

Staff also told the board that crews found voids over the weekend on Pike and Main Streets — one in front of the VFW on Pike and one in front of Mountain State Law on Main — and that a downtown contractor provided a budgetary cost of about $25,000 to repair the two holes. Thrasher's I&I crew was deployed to investigate the root causes earlier in the day.

During the meeting a motion to approve contractor payment number 4 for Independent Enterprises, Inc., was moved and seconded and carried. The motion as recorded in the meeting cited an amount of $526,008.08. The board also approved Thrasher's invoice for the Clarksburg 5A project in the amount cited during the meeting, $37,006.49.

Board members and staff discussed schedule expectations: staff said the contractor should reach the Y intersection on Pike Street by the end of the month and that lining work and other downtown lining will be scheduled later in the summer when the contractor's lining crew is in town.

The payments and invoice approvals were formal motions and votes at the meeting. Staff noted an earlier overpayment issue that had been satisfied by Thrasher and that contingency and R&R (renewal and replacement) funds are expected to cover some downtown work and the bus-garage lining work.

The board did not adopt any of the contractor-proposed change orders at the meeting; staff said negotiations were ongoing to reduce markups and to allocate portions of the flowable-fill cost between parties.

Board members asked for and received clarifications about which line items would come from contingency and which might be charged to R&R funds, and staff said additional details on negotiated change-order amounts will be presented at a future meeting.

The board voted on the pay applications and invoices during the meeting; the motions passed with members responding "aye."