Council votes to repair sewer system
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on January 21, 2015 1:46 PM
Goldsboro will begin implementing a rehabilitation plan to repair trouble spots in its sanitary sewer lines throughout the city after City Council approved the project Tuesday night.
Instead of entering into an agreement with the engineering firm of McKim & Creed for the full cost of sewer rehabilitation for $420,400, as originally suggested, the city restructured the agreement to only authorize the company to provide data analysis of its inflow and infiltration study at the cost of $33,000.
With the scaled back agreement in place, Assistant City Manager Randy Guthrie said he was confident moving forward with the project.
"They'll review already collected data and recommend where to start to better utilize our dollars," Guthrie said. "They will do a better job than we would if we did it in-house and will have more time to dedicate to the project."
The analysis of data and recommendation of repairs will be completed by April 2.
The agreement comes on the heels of Guthrie telling the Goldsboro City Council at its first meeting this month that the original comprehensive sanitary sewer rehabilitation plan needed to be tabled until further work could be done on the plan.
The city conducted an inflow and infiltration analysis on its entire sewer system to both map the system and identify areas in need of repair. This consisted of manhole inspections, smoke and dye testing and pipeline investigations with cameras.
City officials requested a preliminary estimate from McKim & Creed for the total cost of repairs to sewer systems within its boundaries. The company said the total combined cost for project management, developing a repair plan and completing the work would be $420,400.
But city officials shied away from fully implementing the plan, instead opting for the $33,000 agreement for data analysis.
"There was an internal discussion throughout the holidays and we decided it would be best to take our time before we enter into an agreement for repairs," Guthrie said. "We felt like we needed more time to hammer out details before agreeing to the entire project."
At January's first meeting, the council examined and approved a plan for the city to enter into an installment contract with Southern Bank for $1.825 million at an interest rate of 1.27 percent over five years. The money will be used to pay for three automated garbage trucks, 4,300 new refuse carts to be used with the new trucks, a new street sweeper, route optimization for the sanitation department and the purchase of a new fire pumper.
The new garbage trucks and refuse containers will cost a little more than $1 million. A new fire pumper will cost $498,000. Route optimization will cost $20,000, and a new street sweeper will cost $204,644.
Finance Director Kaye Scott said the city estimates paying back the money to Southern Bank in $300,000 per year installments from the city's general fund.
In addition to the equipment purchases, council also authorized the city to spend $63,785 from its unassigned fund balance on repairs to the roof of the city's gas station. Built in 1978, the station also will receive a paint job.
Also authorized was a supplemental agreement to the Berkeley Boulevard widening project, sorting out issues over who was in charge of sewer relocation.
The contract for the project was initially awarded to Fred Smith Co. for $2.8 million, which balked at the location of several sanitary sewer lines in the area, causing the controversy over who was in charge of relocating any sanitary sewer lines in conflict with the widening project.
Under the new supplemental agreement, the city is responsible for the cost associated with sewer relocation along Berkeley Boulevard during the project, but the work will be done by the state Department of Transportation.
The project will widen Berkeley Boulevard from Royall Avenue to New Hope Road. City engineer Marty Anderson said the sewer relocation will be finished by the end of January and the city will know the cost incurred once the project is rebid. The NCDOT will rebid the project after sewer relocation is complete, and Fred Smith Co. is no longer working on the project, Anderson said.
"There is no time frame at this time," NCDOT Communications Officer Jennifer Garifo said. "Once the utility conflict is resolved, the department will re-advertise and award a contract for the project. We do not know at this time when that will take place. However, once a contract is awarded and construction begins, the project is expected to take approximately a year to complete, weather permitting."
At Tuesday night's council meeting, the city entered into another financial agreement with AH Environmental Engineering for the engineering and design of new water plate settlers at Goldsboro's water treatment plant for the amount of $281,000.
Adding water plate settlers would increase the amount of water treated by the city by two million gallons per day, for a total of 14 million gallons treated per day.
The total project, including construction, will cost more than $2 million and come out of the city's utility fund.