Miscalculations take North Bend back to ULID drawing board
November 3, 2008
By Ed Farrell
The North Bend City Council is exploring its options after learning Oct. 28 that miscalculations may have been made in establishing the costs for the city’s already-approved Utility Local Improvement District No. 6.
The expected cost for installing the new sewer system in the city’s Urban Growth Area is now above $20 million – a 43 percent increase from the estimated $14 million the city had based on a pair of studies provided by another city consultant, Earth Tech, Inc, and a subsequent consulting firm, Berryman & Hennigar, also known as BHC, who were previously involved with Earth Tech.
The city has scheduled a meeting for property owners within the district for Nov. 24 to discuss the cost increase situation.
If the new calculations hold up — and the city’s new consultant, Gray and Osborne, Inc. insist they have been checked multiple times — the higher costs will have to be passed along to the property owners who have already agreed to join the special taxing district.
City Administrator Duncan Wilson said the higher costs would not derail the new district, and that under the terms of the establishment of the ULID, the city has the right to charge participants a “fair share” of the true costs incurred to the district.
ULID 6, Wilson said, is “critical to the future growth of the city.”
In June, when the council agreed to expand the new district to include more than 100 homes left out of the original boundaries, the city calculated an average initial assessment of about $2,100 per residence. In addition, district members would be expected to pay between $7,000 to $7,500 to actually hook into the new system.
Wilson said “there is no doubt” the initial assessment figure will increase, given the new calculations, but until Gray and Osborne can provide the city with firmer figures, he would not estimate what the new price might be.
In addition to the increase in costs, Gray and Osborne is recommending the city go with a gravity-fed wastewater system – BHC had recommended a vacuum-powered mechanically-assisted system – and that the city could not reasonably expect the new system to go online until 2011, more than a year later than originally expected.
The largest single increase, the council was told, involved the estimated cost of replacing streets after the new infrastructure was in place. The prior studies had estimated the cost at $60,000; Gray and Osborne representatives said Tuesday a more realistic figure is $5 million, largely because of King County’s stringent pavement restoration requirements.
In addition, the Gray and Osborne engineers said BHC had miscalculated flows into the system, and planned for smaller sewer mains that were not capable of handling the anticipated capacity.
Telephone calls to Earth Tech’s offices were not immediately returned.
Earth Tech was the city’s consultant for the 2001 Comprehensive Plan update, and when the city was considering creating the new sewer district in 2006, BHC was hired to provide the calculations necessary to determine the cost and feasibility of the new ULID, according to Ron Garrow, city public works director.
BHC’s contract was for $73,287, but the firm was paid only $21,413 for the work they performed, Garrow said.
When the ULID was actually formed in 2007, however, Gray and Osborne were brought in to design the proposed system, Garrow said, and soon realized that there were problems with the earlier data.
The Gray and Osborne contract is for $2.46 million, and was approved by the council on Mar. 4, 2008, according to Garrow.
In addition, Gray and Osborne quickly reached the conclusion that a gravity-fed system – which is less expensive to operate and maintain – was more efficient for the city.
BHC’s recommendation for a vacuum system, for example, would have required two pump stations and more than 88,000 feet of lines and mains; Gray and Osborne’s gravity-feed system needs only one pump and 70,000 feet of pipe.
Given the concerns about capacity miscalculations and a completely different recommendation between consultants, the city commissioned a “value engineering” study, which confirmed the Gray and Osborne conclusions, Garrow said.
Reach reporter Ed Farrell at efarrell@snovalleystar.com or 392-6434.
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