The lowest of the two bids submitted for a proposed stormwater lift station—to drain the alley behind Val’s during heavy rains—is at a minimum 65 percent higher than the estimated cost of the project.

Put it another way: Woodruff & Sons’ bid of $205,888 for that project would consume very nearly a quarter of the $880,000 in proceeds from a stormwater bond issued late last year and intended to fund a whole raft of projects.

So, as Chesterton Town Engineer Mark O’Dell told the Stormwater Management Board at its meeting Monday night, he and Woodruff are taking a sharp pencil to the specs and talking to suppliers in an effort to reduce the contract price.

Different materials, a modified valve, “the little things can add up,” O’Dell said. Maybe, he added, they can succeed in shaving $13,000 to $20,000 off the price. By the end of the week, they ought to know.

The bids are good for 30 days from the opening, on Sept. 10. The other bid was $269,200, submitted by Haase Construction Company Inc. of Calumet City, Ill.

The whole idea behind the lift station is to pump stormwater from the alley behind Val’s Famous Pizza & Grinders, located a Broadway and 11th Street. In heavy rains that alley—the lowest point in the Town of Chesterton—tends to flood. The lift station would pump the runoff from the alley to a large stormwater sewer line on Lincoln Ave., about 1,100 feet to the south.

Meanwhile, perhaps prompted by the cost of the Val’s lift station, O’Dell said that he’s beginning to re-think the concept behind a second one, proposed for another alley in the area of 11th Street and West Porter Ave. The estimated cost of that project is—like the Val’s lift station was—$125,000.

Now, O’Dell said, he’s exploring the feasibility of a gravity stormwater line to drain that alley.

To date, the Stormwater Utility has expended $89,706.99 on projects as part of the bond issue. The remaining balance: $761,991.77. Projects already completed: the cleaning of the Lincoln Ave. detention basin, located off 23rd Street by the Prairie Duneland Trail; and two repairs of stormwater lines along 23rd Street, one of them an emergency job.

In August the Stormwater Utility ran a surplus of $3,351 and in the year-to-date is running a surplus of $19,786.

Posted 9/18/2012