New Iberia council moves on sewer evaluations, pump-station contract and rebid for College Street replacement

The New Iberia City Council on April approved multiple actions aimed at identifying and repairing aging sewer infrastructure and at keeping projects aligned with the city’s street overlay schedule.

Why it matters: The council approved inspection and consulting agreements intended to identify failures before streets are resurfaced and authorized construction and consultant contracts for pump-station and treatment-plant work. A separate action rejected a single over-budget bid for the College Street sewer replacement and directed staff to rebid with alternative construction methods, a step the council said is necessary to preserve the city’s $750,000 allocation for the project.

Council action and context

The council approved Resolution 2545, authorizing a master professional services agreement with Compliance and Virus Systems LLC to perform sanitary sewer evaluation services. City staff described the work as covering about 40,000 linear feet and said it will include smoke testing and camera inspections; signing the master agreement creates an on-call contract so the city can request scoped work without committing to immediate large repairs. “Signing this doesn't necessarily mean we have to do any work. Just it's signed. And if we do need to do the work, you know, we just have to tell them what we need,” a staff member said.

Council also approved Resolution 2546, authorizing a professional services agreement with Assurco Risk Management and Regulatory Compliance LLC (d/b/a Municipal H2O) for services at the Sucrose Drive wastewater treatment plant. Council described the hiring as proactive and aimed at ensuring permit compliance.

For construction work, the council awarded Resolution 2543 to NCMC LLC for the Jean Street pump station project and authorized the mayor to execute contract documents.

College Street bid rejection and rebid

The council expanded the agenda and approved Resolution 2552 to reject the single bid received for the College Street sewer replacement project and to re-advertise. The mayor reported the project was budgeted at $750,000 but that the single bid came in “at 900 and something thousand dollars,” exceeding available funds. He said staff will re-scope the work and obtain price comparisons for two construction approaches: the previously bid pipe-bursting method and a conventional dig-and-replace method. “We’re gonna look at it, we'll probably get a price 2 different ways…We could just rebid it, but I wanna have every edge I can because I only have $750,000,” the mayor said.

Coordination with road overlay program

Council members asked that sewer inspection and repair planning be coordinated with the upcoming multi-year street overlay program to avoid cutting newly surfaced streets later. Staff said the overlay bids are in process and that sewer work should be timed to precede paving in affected areas.

What happens next

Staff will schedule the smoke testing and camera work under the master services agreement, perform clean-title searches and proceed with re-advertisement of the College Street project with two scopes for pricing. Findings from sewer evaluations will be presented to council to guide budget adjustments or project packaging.

Ending

Council members said the combined inspection, consulting and rebidding steps are intended to reduce longer-term costs and protect recent and planned street improvements; timetable and final contract amounts will be reported back to council.