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Kamloops News

City flushed with savings

The city has found more than $2 million in savings by tendering the force main project early in the year.
Image Credit: City of Kamloops

KAMLOOPS — Savings of nearly $670,000 per kilometre were generated by tendering the new sanitary sewer force main project early this year.

Almost three kilometres of new sewer line is set to be installed along Mission Flats Road, adjacent to the existing force main, to help deal with the large amount of waste generated by the 46,000 residents on the south shore. The larger line will add redundancy to the current 40-year-old line, which has failed twice in the past 10 years, as well as allow for more growth on the south shore.

The original budget for the project was $5.8 million but by tendering early the city was able to save about $2 million, which means less money needs to be borrowed. (An alternative approval process was used last spring to approve the necessary borrowing.) Tendering projects earlier in the year is one of the suggestions city staff got for getting the best options and pricing and one they intend to use going forward as often as possible.

The lowest of the seven bids was from Acres Enterprises Ltd at $3,729,247. The same company was also awarded the nearly $1.16 million lift station project last year, a key component in the south shore sewer system.

Public Works Director Jen Fretz they have basically been crossing their fingers hoping nothing would happen to the current line and the new line will help alleviate that pressure if something does happen.

“The new pipe will provide much-needed redundancy, and additional capacity to service development and growth,” she says. “The existing force main will remain in service after the new main is installed to provide the required redundancy.”

During construction, which is set to start in March and last about eight months, sewer services will not be impacted though drivers along Mission Flats Road could experience some minor delays.

Finance Director Sally Edwards says the project will be covered through development cost charges and borrowing. The original plan was to borrow nearly $3 million but that amount will be reduced significantly thanks to the lower priced contract. Savings will not directly impact the 2014 budget but the reduction in interest costs will be updated in the financial plan.

To contact a reporter for this story, email jstahn@infotelnews.ca, call (250)819-3723 or tweet @JennStahn.

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