Ridgewood Water announces $1.53M congressional lead-abatement grant and presents multiple contract awards

Ridgewood Water Director Rich Calby told the council March 4 that the utility had been notified it is the recipient of a $1.53 million congressional direct-spending grant for lead abatement, awarded through federal channels (Senator offices referenced in the meeting). Calby said the funds are not yet on hand and that the terms of the grant had not been finalized at the time of the meeting.

Calby also presented water‑utility procurement items: a recommended year-two sole-source SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) contract with Emerson Software (amount as stated in the meeting/agenda appears as "22,54946" in the transcript record and should be confirmed in the official contract documents), a one-year contract for soil testing and disposal with Repco (recommended not-to-exceed $100,000), state-contract supplies with Granger (not-to-exceed $65,000), and a cooperative purchase for backfill material (not-to-exceed $100,000). The council did not record contentious debate on these routine funding items.

Calby described several capital change orders: a geotechnical option for Suburban Consulting ($53,270) tied to the West Glenn Avenue water-main/replacement project; a change-order extension for McDonald on the PAS raw-water-main project (corrected in the meeting record to $87,987); and a correction to a previous award to reflect Watermart doing business as Veritex One Software LLC.

Calby and staff also described a Matrix New World Engineering change order request related to project management and outreach for the Shedler mitigation work (total recommended adjustment $35,238), which the council discussed in the broader remediation agenda items.

What happens next: staff will finalize contracts and change orders per procurement rules and report back on any finalized grant terms and awards; the council directed staff to coordinate procurement and post any necessary notices.