Utility committee recommends Strand design agreement for wastewater plant expansion

The Pataskala City utility committee recommended that city council accept a design agreement with Strand Associates for the wastewater treatment plant expansion, staff said at a utility committee meeting.

Chris, a city staff member, said the agreement before the committee covers the design phase for the plant expansion and carries a base fee of $3,200,000 plus an "if authorized" contingency of $250,000. "The base fee is $3,200,000. And then there is a if authorized section, which is more like a contingency ... of 250,000," Chris said.

The recommendation follows a planning phase the city has already completed. Chris said the planning loan will roll into a design loan and ultimately be wrapped into the construction loan; staff expect the first loan payment about a year after construction finishes. The committee heard that the most recent construction cost projection the city received is about $40,000,000, and that the proposed design fee is just under the common industry benchmark of 10% of construction cost.

Chris told the committee the city's discharge permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been adopted and that the design will be made "expandable" to allow future capacity increases. "Our permit has been adopted already as of this moment," Chris said; he added that the current plant capacity is about 1.1 million gallons, the immediate expansion would take permitted capacity to 2 million gallons and the existing permit would allow a future increase to 3 million gallons.

A motion was made at the meeting to recommend the Strand agreement to city council and was seconded; committee members proceeded to approve sending the proposal to council for formal acceptance. The committee discussed bringing the item to the city council agenda on Feb. 3 for final action, per Chris.

Committee members raised contract concerns during discussion, urging the city to write contract language that protects the city from large errors-and-omissions liabilities and to hold the consultant responsible for design mistakes. A committee member asked that Strand be required to develop operations-and-maintenance (O&M) and efficiency studies during design to show whether the new facility will lower operating costs; Chris said Strand has already started O&M and efficiency work.

The committee also discussed schedule and scope: staff said Strand expects to begin design work after council approval and projected roughly 15 months for design completion. The committee requested more detailed cost-to-operate estimates as design proceeds and asked staff to bring the proposed contract language and O&M findings back for review before final council action.

Next steps: the committee's recommendation will be placed before Pataskala City Council, and staff will return with contract revisions, O&M findings and more detailed operating-cost estimates as Strand develops the design.