Pond bids range from $5.4M to $6.5M

Bids opened last week for Tracy’s planned new sewage treatment lagoons are close to engineers’ estimate.
The apparent low bid from Reiner Contracting was $5,424,382, which is within 1% of the engineers’ estimate of $5,370,000. Two other complete bids were received: R & G Construction, $5,745,000; and Duininck Inc., $6,512,800. A fourth bid proposal was rejected as incomplete.
The I&G Group, Tracy’s consulting engineering firm on the project, is reviewing the bid proposals. The firm is expected to make a recommendation to the Tracy City on Oct. 9, as to which bid to accept. With approval from Rural Development, the federal agency that is the project’s major funder, the council would be able to award a contract Monday night.
Hopes are that construction can begin this fall to lay a perimeter tile around the new pond site, and lower the water table for next year’s pond excavations.
Three new 21.5-acre ponds will be built on newly-acquired city land northeast of the Tracy Airport.
The new settlement lagoons are designed to have 170% more capacity than the city’s current sewage ponds, which total 39 acres.
The project calls for the installation of about 8,000 linear feet of underground pipe, which includes about 3,500 feet leading out to the ponds. The new ponds are expected to go on line by the end of 2018.
Contractors also submitted bids for an alternate to decommission and reclaim the existing ponds. Those bids were rejected. Plans are to seek new bids on the old pond decommissioning next year.