2/11/2009 11:29:00 AM Bids sought for dam rehab project Work period from June 1 to Oct. 31
Eric Nielsen & Rick Hummell Stoughton Courier Hub
The City of Stoughton is seeking bids to repair and upgrade the Fourth Street Dam, a project expected to cost at least a half million dollars and possibly take all summer to complete.
The Stoughton Common Council voted to start the bid process at its Jan. 27 regular meeting.
In the summer of 2007, the Mead and Hunt engineering firm conducted an inspection of the dam which revealed that although the dam - believed to have been built about 1917 - is in relatively good condition for its age, it still needs a number of repairs and upgrades to ensure its future viability.
Repairs/upgrades recommended by Mead and Hunt include replacing the dam's two tainter gates - the large metal gates that are raised or lowered by hand-drawn chains to control the water level - with one large mechanized gate.
Other recommendations include filling in some areas to reduce steep slopes, extending a box culvert that empties just downstream of the dam, removing some large trees near the dam, and concrete patching and rehab work.
After months of discussion, the city decided to apply $560,000 to dam repairs. 2009 was the earliest the city could put the money into its Capital Improvements budget.
At the January 27 council meeting, Ald. Ron Christianson explained that the Stoughton Plan Commission had recently recommended approval of the "Fourth Street Spillway and Embankment Plan" to the City Council, with bidding specifications to include a start date of June 1, 2009 and completion on Oct. 31, 2009, as well as $530,000 for the work.
Some council members questioned if the amount for the contract was fixed or fluid.
"Is this going to be just a ballpark figure to put in the motion?" Ald. Ross Scovotti asked. "This is (Mead and Hunt's) estimate," Ald. Carl Chenoweth told the council. "These are not actual bid numbers."
"We asked this very question of Mead and Hunt," Christianson said. "And they felt...about 95 percent sure that this was the number we were going to go with."
Laurie Sullivan, the city's finance director, said the specific number may want to be left out when the city puts out its bid, though.
The $530,000 would go towards renovating the dam, while a proposed alliance between the city and Hydro Component Systems, would share the cost of the possible repair of the old hydro-electric station.
In other City Council news:
The city has had second thoughts about a dredging proposal for Paradise Pond.
The temporary measure, which was approved in November, 2008, was meant to keep storm water from flooding the body of water by removing three feet of the sediment and debris from the pond. But Planning Director Rodney Scheel and the Plan Commission said it was not feasible in the long run. Instead, the city will look at pumping the pond to alleviate flooding.
After meetings between the Plan Commission and its consultants, "...the pumping opportunity came to the forefront as being the most likely to succeed," Scheel said.
He made the recommendation to move the money set aside for the dredging to a pump system instead,
"The actual permit fee (for dredging) wouldn't have been expensive," he said. "It would have been the analysis to compare all of the alternatives you would have to put together, and in that process, the fee amount and the time spent with the engineering might not have been the major issue to deal with. It might have been the time lag and getting it approved, and in the event that you didn't get approved, we would have to discount the analysis for the pumping option, which we...believe is the most appropriate."
"So in other words, there's not money laying out there for other purposes," Ald. Paul Lawrence said, "specifically, the pumping."
"Correct," Scheel said. "The motion previously was to allocate X amount of dollars to this activity (alleviating the ponds flooding), with the first step being the pursuit of the dredging option. Without that option, we'll still use that funding for the full implementation."
