Board approves Veolia master agreement and awards Elm Electric for water‑plant upgrades

The Danbury Board of Awards voted unanimously Dec. 18 to authorize a master services agreement extension with Veolia and to award construction work for emergency control‑system upgrades at city water treatment plants.

Antonio Iadarola, city engineer and public works director, told the board the Veolia agreement "is gonna provide tremendous savings to the city once fully implemented" and said the master agreement will allow the city to issue individual work orders, the first covering design and procurement of long‑lead items. The board approved executing the agreement as presented, contingent on final review by the law department.

Iadarola said the Veolia extension is an extension of an existing operations agreement for the water treatment plant and that the city has been developing the Renewable Assets Project with the mayor's office for "probably about 6 to 8 months now." The measure passed on a unanimous voice vote.

On emergency upgrades, Colton summarized that the project had previously been declared an emergency and that the investigation/design phase had been completed by Elm Electric. Project engineer Richard Walker advised the board that scope changes raised Elm Electric's construction cost for the Marjorie plant to $405,292 (previously listed at $343,572). Colton put the award to Elm Electric forward "contingent on execution of an acceptable agreement," and the board approved the motion unanimously. Colton provided a charge code for the work: Water202398147000O599.

The board recorded the awards as contingent on contract execution and the law department's final review; no vote tallies beyond unanimous approval were recorded in the transcript. The actions move the Renewable Assets Project into a design/procurement work‑order phase and commit Elm Electric to the Marjorie construction phase pending finalized agreements.