Council authorizes $442,276 in electrical upgrades at wastewater plant and approves inspection supplement with PEC

The Andover City Council on June 11 authorized electrical upgrades at the city’s wastewater treatment plant — a redundant feed and upgraded transformers supplied by Butler Rural Electric Cooperative — for an estimated $442,276, and accepted Supplemental Agreement No. 3 with Professional Engineering Consultants (PEC) PA to cover additional inspection and construction-administration services tied to an extended construction schedule.

Rick (city staff) told the council the plant needs larger transformers and a redundant feed so that if one feed goes out the other automatically keeps critical systems operational: "We knew there was gonna be an increased need of power so that the transformers that are existing will not work...Butler Electric can provide that through a different feed, so it requires another set of transformers over there. So if 1 power feed goes out from 1 direction, the other feed kicks on automatically and keeps us operational." He said a generator had been considered but had an estimated cost of about $1.2 million in prior studies and that Butler’s alternative avoids OEM generator costs.

Butler Rural Electric representatives explained the cooperative model: Butler would supply and maintain cooperative-owned equipment; the city would cover the line-extension or service cost, and the cooperative would own and be responsible for replacing equipment if damaged. Butler noted lead times for pad-mounted transformers are long (50–62 weeks) and the transformers sized for the plant would be large pad-mount units.

Council also approved Supplemental Agreement No. 3 with PEC to add inspection days after contractors requested more time; staff increased the contract time window by 180 days (from 760 to 940 days) and noted the supplemental raises the not-to-exceed inspection total (construction administration hours) to about $1,294,000. Staff said the combined design and construction-administration costs equate to about 9.22% of the project, which staff described as reasonable for the project scale. The council approved the upgrades ($442,276) and the PEC supplemental agreement by separate motions; both motions carried 6-0.

Why it matters: The upgrades provide redundant power and increased transformer capacity at a critical city facility; the PEC supplemental secures additional inspection and administration capacity tied to an extended construction schedule. The capital cost for the Butler work and the engineering supplemental are material components of the wastewater project.

Details and next steps: Butler will Source transformers and schedule installation (with long lead times); PEC’s supplemental is an hourly not-to-exceed amendment for additional inspection and administration. Staff said invoices will be trued up to actual hours worked and that if certain days are unused the city will not pay for them.