Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RICHARD JENKINS
Ramsay — The Gogebic Range Water Authority is moving forward with its project to replace a significant amount of water and sewer pipes in the city of Bessemer, taking several steps Thursday night to complete the requirements necessary to get the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Rural Development loan that is helping finance the work.
“We’ve been getting a lot of paperwork now, because they want to close … before the end of March on this project,” authority administrator Jean Verbos said.
The authority’s board accepted a letter of condition the USDA sent, which sets out the terms the authority must comply with to get the $2.3 million USDA loan.
It also agreed to meet said conditions, which basically means the authority agrees to comply with the conditions set out in the USDA letter.
According to Verbos, the $2.3 million loan was only for the water portion of the project that is ultimately planned to replace 24,600 feet of sewer line and 15,700 feet of water main throughout Bessemer, including Yale Location.
The board also adopted a loan resolution, another formality necessary to continue the project.
These steps allow the project to continue toward a start date this spring or summer.
The bidding process had hit a temporary roadblock late last year, when the USDA informed the authority it had concerns with the bidding process. At issue was the fact the authority waived irregularities in one of the two lowest bids but not the other. The result was the bid was awarded to the second lowest bidder — Snow Country Contracting, which submitted a bid of $4,520,792.
In December, the authority board voted to send the USDA additional information explaining why it accepted Snow Country’s bid and not Ruotsala Construction’s $3,832,286 bid.
Charles Lawson, a project manager with the engineering firm C2AE, told the Daily Globe in December the reasoning behind the authority’s decision was basically because Snow Country provided “better documentation after the fact” to explain how it reached its figure than Ruotsala did.
Lawson said the irregularities were due to the companies making different calculations regarding the amount of work and materials needed for the project.
The minutes of the authority’s January meeting indicate the USDA accepted the authority’s argument presented in the additional information and allowed the bid award to stand.
Had the USDA not accepted the additional information, the authority would have had to either award the bid to the third lowest bidder, or rebid the project entirely, according to information presented in December.
While the water portion of the project involves a $2.3 million loan, according to information presented Thursday, the project also includes $5,638,000 in work to the wastewater portion of the project through the city of Bessemer. Verbos said this would involve the city using a $3 million loan and $2,638,000 in grant funds.
