Utility board outlines sewer work and financing as council presses for clearer cost breakdown

Charles Town — The city’s utility board told council members on Aug. 5 that a multi-year sewer-replacement program will be carried forward to bid this fall after the board completed value-engineering work on the most expensive pump-station component.

On a packed agenda, Miss Dawson, the utility board representative who spoke to council, said the board’s renewal-and-replacement contract for the wastewater plant is a $10.8 million construction program and that the collection-system component now carries a construction estimate of $5,300,000 and total project soft costs that bring the combined project-level total to about $6,600,000.

“Current engineer’s estimate of construction is $5,300,000,” Miss Dawson said during the board briefing, and she described a strategy to put a pricey Flowing Springs pump station into the contract as an add-alternate after redesign and value engineering reduced its scope and estimated cost.

Public commenter Jackie Miller urged the council to publish a side-by-side ledger of the project’s costs over time. “Back in January this council saw an original $4,800,000 project,” Miller said in public comment, adding that earlier public materials had shown capacity-improvement-fee contributions near $1,300,000 but later figures that she read as roughly $910,000. Miller asked whether contingency and soft costs were included in the lower figures and where the reductions came from.

Council members asked several technical and budgetary questions: what the total program price tag would be with engineering and legal soft costs included (Miss Dawson estimated roughly $12 million for the renewal-and-replacement package, including soft costs), how grant proceeds and SRF loans are being applied, and whether removing the Flowing Springs pump-station work from the base bid would materially change what ratepayers must fund.

Miss Dawson described available funding sources: a favorable Clean Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) loan of roughly $2.85 million, a $500,000 green-infrastructure grant, and a $1.6 million EEG grant that could be applied if construction begins in time to meet grant deadlines. She said those awards, together with internal renewal-and-replacement funds and capacity-improvement fees, shape the final local share.

On how much of the project is growth-driven, Miss Dawson said the board’s accounting shows roughly a 55% growth-related share and a 45% non-growth share across the project components; that allocation is used to calculate the capacity-improvement-fee portion of the local match.

Council members pressed staff to publish a component-level reconciliation of the figures that shows what changed since earlier project materials. “We went from $4.8 million to $6.6 million while pulling roughly $3.0 million of that pump-station scope out,” one council member said, asking for a line-item breakdown of construction, contingency and soft costs so the council and public could see exactly where increases occurred.

Miss Dawson also updated the council on compliance and planning items: the board is nearing completion of a lead-and-copper inventory required by federal rules, has nearly obtained all easements for the collection-system project, and anticipates advertising the collection-system bid in September with construction to start in December to meet grant deadlines.

The council did not take a final vote on a project ordinance revision during the meeting but directed staff to return with the detailed cost breakdown, grant-by-grant accounting, and the plan for how the Flowing Springs pump station will be packaged as an add-alternate for bidders.

The utility board plans a community tour once construction of the wastewater plant renewal project reaches substantial completion; staff said substantial completion is anticipated in November.