The Village of Telkwa is working on awarding contracts for the design and consulting aspect of the wastewater treatment plant and sanitary collection system rehabilitation project.
It was announced last month Telkwa was getting money for the project under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program – Rural and Northern Communities Program in the amount of $2.4 million.
It will be 100 per cent funded by the federal and provincial governments.
The project will involve the rehabilitation of the lagoon and ex-filtration system; improvements to the collection system; inspection and repair of manholes and sanitary lines; installation of flow metres, stand by generators and a supervisory control and data acquisition system in sanitary lift stations; repairs to berms, cell curtains and the ex-filtration basin; and installation of perimeter fencing.
The Village has decided to split the project into two parts; the treatment plant and the collection system.
At Tuesday night’s council meeting, councillors quickly voted in favour to go with director of operations Lev Hartfeil’s recommendation to award the contract to WSP for $96,665 for engineering services for the upgrading and rehabilitation of the wastewater treatment plant.
However, there was a lot of discussion about who should be awarded the second contract for the engineering services for the rehabilitation of the sanitary collection system.
Four consulting companies responded to the RFP for the project development, detailed design, tendering and construction services. Hartfeil told council the two proposals from WSP and TRUE Consulting stood out as the best options because they are both highly qualified with vast experience and provided clear proposed methodologies for the project.
However, while TRUE’s price for the work was the lowest received at $48,960, Hartfeil recommended going with WSP, which didn’t sit well with some councillors. WSP’s bid came in at $83,675. TRUE’s bid did not include a component of the work that WSP valued at $13, 325. While this still put TRUE’s bid under in the price category, Hartfeil explained that WSP’s bid scored higher in a number of other categories including relevant experience, resources, scope and methodology.
The bid review committee agreed that WSP’s proposal is the most advantageous to the Village, despite the higher price.
“This is part of a grant-funded project and we need to be able to testify to our funders and with our proposal rating score sheet, we can do that,” said Hartfeil. “It is fully auditable and it isn’t just based on price but overall value. On our scoring system, WSP had the highest score. I’m presenting these options to you because it isn’t the lowest price and if council feels awarding it to the lowest price is preferable then.”
Councillor Leroy Dekens made a motion to have the review committee reconsider and re-evaluate the four proposals received and everyone voted in favour.
“I have an issue explaining that to the taxpayers of Telkwa that we went with WSP for $20,000 more,” said Dekens.
There was concern about a timeline to get the work started because council doesn’t meet again until Sept 15, so a special meeting will be held in the coming weeks.
